GIFT  OF 


FROM 

NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

OR 

THE  DYNAMICS  OF  THE  HEAVENS 

(Euutaiuuw 

A      BROAD     OUTLINE    OF    THE     HISTORY     OF     ASTRONOMY 

A    GENERAL    SUMMARY    OF    ITS    ACHIEVEMENTS 

A    SYNOPSIS    AND    CRITICISM    OF    RECENT 

COSMOLOGICAL    THEORIES 


AN    EXPANSION    OF    THE    PRINCIPLE    OF    UNIVERSAL 

GRAVITATION     TO     THE      SOLUTION     OF      MANY 

COSMIC  PROBLEMS  HERETOFORE  DEEMED 

INSOLUBLE 


BY 

GEORGE    HENRY    L.EPPER 


THIRD    EDITION— REWRITTEN    AND  '  ENLARGED 


PRIVATBT.Y 

UKKOKH     BtJILDINO,     PITTSBUHGH,     PA. 
1917 


COPYRIGHT 

EDITION         -         MARCH,   1912 
EDITION     -         FKBRTTAJRY,  1913 

PR  BJSKNT  EDITION  -         NOVBJMBBJR,  1917 

BY  GEORGE  HENRY  LEPPER 

ALL  BIGHTS  RBBEBTEU 


. 


PITT8BUBOH    PHIN'MNG   COUPAX1 

518    SKVKNTH    AVENUE 

PITT8BUHGH.  PA. 


CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

I  GENERAL  INTRODUCTION  1 

II  NEWTON  's  THEORY  or  PLANETARY  MOTIONS  24 

III  THE  PRIME  RESULTANT  57 

IV  THE  TIDES  83 
V  THE  LAW  OF  EQUILIBRIUM  -  111 

VI  THE  AUTHOR'S  THEORY  OF  THE  TIDES  148 

VII  THE  NEBULAR  HYPOTHESIS  177 

VIII  RECENT  COSMOGONIES  194 

IX  THE  SUN  229 

X  THE  STARS  AND  NEBULA  256 

XI  GRAVISTATIC  HEAT  278 

XH  THE  PLANETS  MARS  AND  VENUS  -  307 

XIII  THE  MOON     -    -    -    -         ------      326 


3G6346 


GENERAL  INTRODUCTION 


THE  object  of  this  work  is  twofold:  first,  to  present  a 
re-valuation  of  the  time-honored  doctrines  upon 
which  modern  astronomical  science  is  based,  and, 
secondly,  to  propose  a  new  system  of  cosmology  revealing 
the  entire  universe  in  the  philosophic  aspect  of  a  single 
organic  unit.  Like  that  of  Newton,  my  system  is  founded 
upon  the  great  underlying  principle  of  universal  gravita- 
tion ;  but  it  improves  upon  his  by  taking  into  account  the 
hitherto  unexploited  factor  of  the  joint  attraction  of  the 
stars  and  its  dynamical  influence  upon  the  domestic  rela- 
tions of  our  solar  family. 

During  the  two  centuries  which  have  elapsed  since 
the  publication  of  The  Principia  many  important  astro- 
nomical facts  have  come  to  light,  for  example ;  the  jour- 
ney of  the  sun  in  space,  the  proper  motions  of  stars,  the 
enormous  age  of  the  earth,  the  anomalous  acceleration  of 
the  moon,  the  existence  of  nebulae,  etc.,  whose  successful 
incorporation  into  gravitational  astronomy  demands,  not 
adaptation  merely,  but  radical  reconstruction. 

Astronomers  in  general  appear  to  have  lulled  them- 
selves into  the  comforting  belief  that  the  paramount 
problems  of  astronomy  have  been  successfully  disposed 
of,  and  that  little  remains  to  be  done  save  detail  work, 
such  as,  the  classifying  of  star  spectra,  keeping  tab  on  the 
variable  stars,  computing  asteroidal  orbits,  and  the  like, 
— a  romance  which  popular  writers  on  astronomy  have 
long  been  busily  disseminating  among  their  lay  readers. 


afr  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 


Let  us  inquire,  then,  what  progress  science  has  really 
made  toward  solving  some  of  these 

PARAMOUNT  ASTRONOMICAL  PROBLEMS 

1.  The  Origin  and  Maintenance  of  Celestial  Mo- 
tions. 

2.  The  Law  of  Gravitation. 

3.  The  Source  of  the  Sun's  Heat. 

4.  The  Genesis  of  the  Solar  System. 

5.  The  Origin  and  Nature  of  Comets. 

6.  The  Causes  of  the  Tides. 

7.  The  Individual  Characteristics  of  the  Planets. 

8.  Stellar  Problems  in  General. 

9.  The  Destiny  of  the  Universe. 

CELESTIAL  MOTIONS 

Newton,  in  common  with  his  backward  age,  believed 
implicitly  in  the  Mosaic  cosmogony,  namely,  that  only  six 
millenniums  before  him  Jehovah  had  created  the  heavens 
and  the  earth  and,  as  part  of  the  creative  plan,  launched 
the  moon  in  her  orbit  around  the  earth  and  the  planets  in 
their  orbits  around  the  sun.  In  this  way  he  felt  himself 
absolved  from  the  otherwise  logical  necessity  of  assign- 
ing definite  physical  causes  for  the  origin  of  those  mo- 
tions. A  century  or  so  after  Newton's  death,  however, 
when  Geology  had  proved  the  immense  age  of  our  globe, 
men's  conceptions  of  nature  underwent  a  great  philo- 
sophic change.  Newton's  idea  of  a  personal  Creator 
bowling  worlds  about  began  to  look  altogether  too  naive 
to  an  agnostic  age,  and  scientists  started  to  cast  about  for 
a  natural  explanation.  Such  an  "  explanation"  they 
promptly  found;  but  in  naivete  it  infinitely  surpasses 
Newton's  conception,  and  might  with  better  propriety 
have  emanated  from  the  brain  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  Topsy, 
who  "  just  growed".  This  explanation  is,  forsooth,  noth- 
ing more  or  less  than  the  bald  assertion  that  the  assumed 


INTRODUCTION 


original  rectilinear  planetary  and  stellar  motions  do  not 
stand  in  need  of  explanation  at  all ;  that  motion  is  just  as 
"natural"  to  celestial  bodies  as  rest;  that  the  earth  ro- 
tates on  its  axis  because  it  always  did  so ;  that  the  sun, 
moon,  earth,  planets,  stars,  comets,  asteroids,  meteors 
and  what-not  move  of  themselves  without  either  impul- 
sion or  propulsion.  If  this  is  seriously  to  be  regarded  as 
a  "solution",  then  every  imaginable  problem  is  as  good 
as  solved,  and  fair  woman's  "just  because"  rises  to  the 
explicitness  of  a  categorical  answer.  Here  is  a  perti- 
nent quotation  drawn  from  Dr.  Charles  A.  Young's  text- 
book, General  Astronomy,  a  standard  work  taught  in 
most  of  the  universities  and  colleges  of  this  country  (Art. 
400): 

It  has  been  customary  with  some  writers  to  speak  of  a  body 
thus  moving  "uniformly  in  a  straight  line"  as  actuated  by  a 
"projectile  force",  a  very  unfortunate  expression,  which  is  a 
survival  of  the  Artistotelian  idea  that  rest  is  more  "natural"  to 
matter  than  motion,  and  that  when  a  body  moves,  some  force 
must  operate  to  keep  it  moving.  The  mere  uniform  rectilinear 
motion  of  a  material  mass  in  empty  space  implies  no  action  of  a 
physical  cause,  and  demands  explanation  only  as  mere  existence 
does.  Change  of  motion,  either  in  speed  or  direction — this  alone 
implies  force  in  operation. 

And  here  is  another,  to  much  the  same  purpose,  from 
the  pen  of  Prof.  Frederick  Soddy,  the  celebrated  physi- 
cist of  Glasgow  University  (Matter  and  Energy,  p.  19) : 

Before  the  doctrine  of  its  conservation  was  established, 
energy  was  mysterious  and  unaccountable  in  its  comings  and  go- 
ings. To-day  it  is  no  longer  a  mystery.  The  unaccounted-for 
appearance  or  disappearance  of  a  quantity  of  energy  in  any 
process,  however  complex,  would  rouse  as  much  scientific  interest 
as  the  mysterious  appearance  or  disappearance  of  matter.  When 
it  appears  it  must  come  from  somewhere,  and  when  it  disappears 
it  must  go  somewhere.  Gradually  this  Law  of  Conservation  has 
supplied  the  physicist  with  an  experimental  test  of  reality  in  a 
changing  universe.  What  appears  and  disappears  mysteriously, 
giving  no  clue  of  its  origin  or  destination,  is  outside  of  his 
province.  To  him  it  has  no  physical  existence.  What  is  con- 
served has  physical  existence,  whether  it  is  tangible  and  ponder- 
able like  matter,  or  intangible  and  imponderable  like  energy. 
Early  writers,  when  they  really  meant  what  is  now  called  energy, 


FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 


often  used  the  term  force ;  and  the  idea  of  force,  as  will  later  be 
discussed,  has  confused  the  issues  and  retarded  the  growth  of 
science  to  an  almost  incalculable  extent.  Carlyle  says,  meaning 
energy — "Force,  Force,  everywhere  Force ;  we  ourselves  a  myster- 
ious Force  in  the  centre  of  that  "There  is  not  a  leaf  rotting  on 
the  highway  but  has  Force  in  it:  how  else  could  it  rot?"  The 
very  idea  of  Force  is,  however,  what  would  be  termed  an  an- 
thropomorphism;  that  is  to  say,  it  ascribes  the  behavior  of 
inanimate  objects  to  causes  derived  from  the  behavior  of  human 
beings.  We  have  come  to  associate  the  motion  of  matter  with 
somebody  or  something  pulling  or  pushing  it.  When  one  body 
is  observed  to  move  toward  another,  like  a  stone  falling  to  the 
ground,  it  has  been  supposed  that,  although  no  agent  is  visible, 
something  must  be  pulling  it.  What,  however,  is  actually  ob- 
served is  a  change  of  position  of  the  body,  which  acquires  at 
the  same  time  motion  or  velocity.  The  observation  is  correctly 
expressed  by  saying  that  energy,  before  associated  with  the 
position  of  one  body  with  reference  to  another  (potential  energy), 
has  changed  into  energy  of  motion  (kinetic  energy).  To  suppose 
that  the  one  body  attracts  or  pulls  the  other  with  a  certain 
"force"  is  to  imagine  a  cause  which,  if  it  existed,  would  account 
for  the  effect.  Forces  are  not  conserved,  they  have  no  physical 
existence,  but  they  still  survive  even  in  scientific  parlance,  mainly 
because  of  the  poverty  of  the  language,  which  hardly  allows  ef- 
fects to  be  expressed  without  some  causal  inference. 

And  on  his  page  112  Mr.  Soddy  says  further : 

An  ingenious  theory  of  gravitation  was  put  forward  a 
century  ago  which,  though  not  accepted,  is  very  suggestive,  and 
illustrates  the  difference  between  what  science  would  consider  a 
real  cause  and  one  that  is  fictitious,  like  the  {< force  of  gravity." 

Now,  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  these  excerpts  are 
merely  the  unsupported  opinions  of  two  eminent  men ;  on 
the  contrary,  they  express  the  consensus  of  opinion  of  the 
entire  orthodox  scientific  world.  Coldly  analyzed,  they 
amount  to  a  denial  of  the  inviolability  of  natural  law,  and 
set  a  finite  limit  to  the  chain  of  physical  cause  and  effect. 
To  do  either  of  these  things  is  to  destroy  the  very  founda- 
tion of  physical  science.  A  nebula  can  no  more  rotate,  I 
hold,  without  the  continued  application  of 'some  physical 
power  than  can  a  mill-wheel,  nor  a  star  spontaneously 
shoot  through  space  any  more  than  can  a  leaden  bullet. 
Modern  Astronomy  is  therefore  based  on  a  rank  heresy. 
It  sets  out  to  solve  the  machinery  of  the  solar  system, 


INTRODUCTION 


first,  by  inanely  assuming  that  it  got  started  without 
power,  and,  secondly,  by  interpreting  its  manifold  con- 
cordances as  just  happy  fortuities.  As  a  very  abbrevi- 
ated list  of  the  host  of  things  about  our  solar  system 
which  astronomers  confess  their  inability  to  explain,  in 
spite  of  the  aid  of  these  factitious  assumptions,  let  me 
quote  again  from  Dr.  Young's  book  (Gen'l  Astr.,  p.  566) : 

In  the  present  state  of  science  many  of  the  questions  thus 
suggested  seem  to  be  hopelessly  beyond  the  reach  of  investigation, 
while  others  appear  like  problems  which  time  and  patient  work 
will  solve,  and  others  yet  have  already  received  clear  and  decided 
answers.  In  a  general  way  it  may  be  said  that  the  condensation 
and  aggregation  of  rare  field  masses  of  matter  under  the  force  of 
gravitation;  the  conversion  into  heat  of  the  (potential)  ''energy 
of  position"  destroyed  by  the  process  of  condensation;  the  effect 
of  this  heat  upon  the  contracting  mass  itself,  and  the  radiation 
of  energy  into  space  and  to  surrounding  bodies  as  waves  of  light 
and  heat — these  principles  contain  nearly  all  the  explanations  that 
can  thus  far  be  given  of  the  present  state  of  the  heavenly  bodies. 

We  see  that  our  planetary  system  is  not  a  mere  accidental  ag- 
gregation of  bodies.  Masses  of  matter  coming  haphazard  to- 
wards the  sun  would  move  as  comets  do,  in  orbits,  always  conic 
sections  to  be  sure,  but  of  every  degree  of  eccentricity  and  in- 
clination. There  are  a  multitude  of  relations  actually  observed  in 
the  planetary  system  which  are  WHOLLY  INDEPENDENT  OF  GRAVI- 
TATION AND  DEMAND  AN  EXPLANATION. 

1.  The  orbits  are  all  nearly  circular. 

2.  They  are  all  nearly  in  one  plane  (excepting  the  cases  of 
some  of  the  little  asteroids). 

3.  The  revolution  of  all  is  in  the  same  direction. 

4.  There  is  a  curiously  regular  progression  of  distance  (ex- 
pressed by  Bode's  law,  which,  however,  breaks  down  at  Neptune) . 

5.  There   is  a   roughly  regular  progression  of  density,  in- 
creasing both  ways  from  Saturn,  the  least  dense  of  all  the  planets 
in  the  system. 

As  regards  the  planets  themselves,  we  have : 

6.  The  plane  of  the  planet's  rotation,  nearly  coinciding  with 
that  of  the  orbit  (probably  excepting  Uranus). 

7.  The  direction  of  the  rotation  the  same  as  that  of  the 
orbital  revolution  (excepting  probably  Uranus  and  Neptune). 

8.  The  plane  of  orbital  revolution  of  the  satellites  coinciding 

nearly  with  that  of  the  planet's  rotation. 


FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 


9.  The  direction  of  the  satellite's  revolution  also  coinciding 
with  that  of  the  planet's  rotation. 

10.  The  largest  planets  rotate  most  swiftly. 

(The  italics  are  all  his,  but  the  small  caps  are  mine.) 

THE  LAW  OF  GRAVITATION 

It  is  a  notorious  fact  that  the  computations  for  the 
Nautical  Almanac  are  based,  not  on  Newton's  law  of 
gravitation  at  all,  but  on  a  purely  empirical  corruption  "of 
it.  The  late  Dr.  Simon  Newcomb,  who  for  many  years 
was  at  the  head  of  that  office  in  Washington,  made  no 
secret  of  the  fact  that  all  computations  based  upon  the 
rigid  law  of  the  inverse  square  invariably  disagree  with 
Nature's  own  results,  and  that,  in  order  to  cure  the  dis- 
crepancies, he  systematically  tacked  a  minute  decimal 
(.0000001574)  onto  the  exponent  two.  Why  the  addition 
of  this  decimal  was  necessary,  Newcomb  confessed  him- 
self unable  to  explain ;  his  only  excuse  being  the  familiar 
one  of  the  schoolboy,  namely,  that  it  was  the  only  way  he 
could ' '  get  the  answer  in  the  book ' ' !  Indeed,  Newcomb 's 
method  is  now  common  among  mathematical  astronomers 
all  the  world  over ;  although  not  all  use  his  decimal,  which 
is  being  "doctored"  continually  by  many  hands  in  futile 
efforts  to  get  it  "just  right".  Desirable  though  this  ob- 
ject may  be  from  a  practical  point  of  view,  the  really  im- 
portant thing,  philosophically  considered,  is  to  explain 
the  origin  of  the  discrepancy.  So  long  as  this  part  con- 
tinues unexplained,  the  very  principle  of  universal  gravi- 
tation remains  on  trial.  Empiricism  is  not  science.  In- 
deed, is  it  not  a  historical  fact  that  Newton  at  first  stoi- 
cally rejected  his  own  theory  of  gravitation  for  precisely 
such  a  discrepancy?  Here  let  me  quote  a  few  words 
from  Professor  Ernest  W.  Brown,  the  recognized  chief 
authority  to-day  on  the  lunar  theory  (A.  J.  S.,  Dec., 
1914) : 

It  appears  now  that  [some  of]  the  deviations  of  the  moon 
from  its  calculated  path  cannot  be  accounted  for  by  any  gravita- 
tional cause.  *  *  *  From  the  agreement  of  the  theoretical  and  ob- 


INTRODUCTION 


served  motion  of  the  moon's  perigee  I  find  that  the  index  which 
the  inverse  square  law  contains  does  not  differ  from  2  by  a  frac- 
tion so  great  as  %  00,000,000. 

And  this,  also,  from  the  pen  of  Charles  Lane  Poor, 
Professor  of  Astronomy  in  Columbia  University  (The 
Solar  System,  p.  169) : 

Le  Verrier  discovered  a  slight  irregularity  in  the  motion  of 
Mercury,  which  for  over  a  half  a  century  has  been  a  source  of 
trouble  to  astronomers  and  has  led  Newcomb  to  question  the  ex- 
actitude of  the  law  of  gravitation.  The  perihelion  of  Mercury's 
orbit  has  a  secular  perturbation,  or  regular  forward  movement, 
amounting  to  579."  16  per  century.  Taking  into  account  the  dis- 
turbing action  of  all  the  known  bodies  in  the  solar  system,  New- 
comb  shows  the  law  of  gravitation  will  account  for  only  537/'62 ; 
or  the  perihelion  of  Mercury  moves  forward  along  the  plane  of 
the  orbit  by  some  41.  "54  per  Century  in  a  manner  that  cannot  be 
accounted  for.  In  his  Astronomical  Constants  Newcomb  dis- 
misses many  possible  explanations  of  this  anomalous  motion,  and 
after  careful  treatment  discards  them  all  as  untenable.  He 
shows  that  this  motion  cannot  be  due  to  erroneous  determination 
of  the  masses  of  the  various  planets,  nor  to  hitherto  undiscovered 
planets.  For  a  readjustment  of  the  masses,or  the  introduction  in- 
to the  system  of  new  bodies  sufficiently  large  to  explain  the  dis- 
crepancy, will  introduce  serious  discordances  into  the  motions  of 
the  other  planets.  He  seems  to  accept  as  the  most  probable  hy- 
pothesis, first  propounded  by  Hall,  that  the  gravitation  of  the  sun 
is  not  exactly  as  the  inverse  square  but  that  the  exponent  of  the 
distance  is  2.0000001574,  instead  of  2.  He  provisionally  accepts 
this  as  a  working  theory  and  introduces  it  into  the  computation  of 
his  tables  of  planetary  motion. 

THE  SOURCE  OF  THE  SUN'S  HEAT 

Newton  sought  to  explain  the  light  and  heat  of  the 
sun  by  supposing  the  original  chaos  to  have  been  com- 
posed of  two  main  kinds  of  matter,  luminous  and  non- 
luminous,  and  then  picturing  the  Creator  as  segregating 
the  first  kind  into  the  central  body  that  we  call  the  sun, 
and  molding  the  rest  into  the  earth,  moon  and  planets. 
A  century  later  Laplace  postulated  incandescence  for  his 
nebula  and  thence  derived,  not  only  our  glowing  luminary 
but  the  planets,  also,  in  an  original  state  of  fusion. 
Shortly  before  the  middle  of  the  past  century  the  theory 


8  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

of  the  mechanical  equivalent  of  heat  had  its  birth,  and  it 
was  then  immediately  contended  that  the  Nebula  must 
have  been  cold  to  start  with,  but  that  the  kinetic  energy 
developed  by  the  falling  together  of  its  component  mat- 
ter into  the  large  bodies  of  the  sun  and  planets  initially 
heated  them  in  a  degree  proportional  to  their  respective 
masses.  Mathematicians,  however,  soon  showed  that,  so 
far,  at  least,  as  the  sun  was  concerned,  the  new  hypothe- 
sis was  absurdly  below  requirements ;  and  this  finding  it 
was  that  evoked  the  suggestion  from  Helmholtz  that  the 
sun  is  still  a  contracting  body,  that  is  to  say,  one  in  which 
the  energy  due  to  "  position "  is  still  in  process  of  conver- 
sion into  kinetic  energy.  Although  this  theory  was 
tenaciously  adhered  to  for  decades,  in  spite  of  its  geologi- 
cal contradictions,  it  finally  succumbed  to  the  joint  attack 
of  the  mathematician's  pencil  and  the  new  champion, 
Eadium.  But  alas,  and  alas !,  according  to  Doctor  S.  A. 
Mitchell  (Pop.  Astr.,  June,  1913) : 

From  theoretical  considerations  we  are  positively  convinced 
that  there  must  be  radium  in  the  sun.  But  to  prove  this  is  an- 
other problem !  With  the  spectra  we  already  have,  we  can  prove 
nothing  but  coincidences. 

In  a  nutshell,  then,  the  source  of  the  sun 's  heat  is  still 
a  wide-open  question. 

THE  GENESIS  or  THE  SOLAR  SYSTEM 

For  nearly  three  quarters  of  a  century,  and  until  a 
decade  or  two  ago,  the  Nebular  Hypothesis  of  Laplace 
was  generally  esteemed  as  the  true  exposition  of  the 
modus  operandi  pursued  by  Nature  in  the  evolution  of  the 
solar  system.  Now  it  is  no  longer  so  regarded  by  the 
great  majority  of  astronomers,  and,  more  particularly,  by 
those  who  have  made  this  subject  a  special  study.  Al- 
though it  is  quite  true  that  numerous  other  hypotheses 
have  arisen  to  compete  for  its  vacated  place,  the  fall  of 
the  Hypothesis  has  not  been  owing  so  much  to  their  suc- 
cessful rivalry  as  to  the  belated  recognition  of  its  own 
glaring  defects.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  never  since  Newton 


INTRODUCTION 


has  the  scientific  problem  of  the  genesis  of  the  solar  sys- 
tem been  in  a  more  chaotic  and  discouraging  state  than 
at  this  very  time,  in  spite  of,  or  perhaps  because  of,  the 
distracting  multiplicity  of  rival  cosmogonies. 

THE  COMETS 

These  objects  remain  as  great  a  mystery  to  men  of 
science  of  the  twentieth  century  as  to  Newton  and  his  gen- 
eration. It  is  true  that  some  new  information  has  been 
gleaned  from  the  spectra  of  comets,  and  also  from  a  crit- 
ical study  of  their  orbital  vagaries ;  but  as  to  their  origin 
and  nature,  and  the  causes  of  the  peculiarities  exhibited 
by  their  tails,  practically  nothing  has  yet  been  satisfac- 
torily determined.  Young  sums  it  up  by  saying  (Art. 
737) :  "We  have  little  certain  knowledge  on  the  subject." 

THE  TIDES 

There  are  two  criteria,  and  two  only,  for  testing  the 
correctness  of  Newton's  tidal  theory.  One  of  these  was 
pointed  out  about  a  century  and  a  half  ago  by  the  German 
philosopher,  Immanuel  Kant,  who,  relying  upon  the 
theory,  demonstrated  that  the  earth's  rotation  should  be 
gradually  slowing,  and  our  day  consequently  lengthening. 
Since  Kant's  day,  however,  mathematicians  have  con- 
vinced themselves  that  the  day  has  not  lengthened,  even 
infinitesimally ;  hence  the  tidal  theory  cannot  on  this 
count  be  sustained.  The  second,  and  doubtless  more 
satisfactory,  test  is  that  of  comparing  the  computations 
made  on  the  basis  of  theory  with  the  observations.  This 
test  has  been  repeatedly  applied  in  anxious  efforts  to  cor- 
roborate Newton,  but  invariably  with  results  precisely 
the  reverse.  Sir  George  H.  Darwin  (son  of  the  great 
naturalist),  recently  deceased,  and  the  late  Lord  Kelvin, 
who  to-day  are  everywhere  esteemed  as  among  the 
highest,  if  not  the  very  highest,  authorities  on  the  tides, 
for  a  score  of  years  collaborated  together  on  this  subject. 
It  goes  without  saying  that  if  these  gentlemen,  imbued  as 
they  were  to  the  very  last  with  unquestioning  faith  in 
Newton's  tidal  theories,  could  have  found  anything  in  the 


10  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

observed  facts  to  warrant  and  support  that  belief,  they 
would  assuredly  have  jubilantly  proclaimed  it  to  the 
world.  But  what  does  Darwin  really  testify?  He  says 
(The  Tides,  p.  161) : 

The  equilibrium  theory  is  nearly  as  much  wrong  as  possible 
in  respect  to  the  time  of  high  water.  In  fact  in  many  places  it  is 
nearly  low  water  at  the  time  the  equilibrium  theory  predicts  high 
water.  It  would  seem  then  as  if  the  tidal  action  of  the  moon  was 
actually  to  repel  the  water  instead  of  attracting  it,  and  we  are 
driven  to  ask  whether  this  result  can  possibly  be  consistent  with 
the  theory  of  universal  gravitation. 

Note  this,  also,  from  Doctor  Young  (Gen9 1  Astr.,  p. 
307): 

In  fact  the  statical  theory  [of  tides]  becomes  utterly  unsatis- 
factory in  regard  to  what  actually  takes  place,  and  it  is  necessary 
to  depend  almost  entirely  on  the  results  of  observation,  using  the 
theory  merely  as  a  guide  in  the  discussion  of  the  observations. 


INDIVIDUAL  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  PLANETS 

Given  a  sound  system  of  cosmology,  scientists  ought 
to  be  able  to  read  the  characters  of  the  various  planets 
from  theoretical  considerations,  without  depending 
supinely,  as  they  do,  on  the  evidence  of  the  telescope. 
The  fact  of  the  matter,  however,  is  that  they  know  not  how 
to  establish  by  deduction  a  single  planetary  peculiarity 
that  the  telescope  has  revealed.  They  lack  completely  a 
sound  method  of  interpretation.  To  them  the  question  of 
Venus'  axial  rotation,  for  example,  is  a  problem  for  the 
telescope  or  spectroscope,  not  for  the  mind  to  reason  out. 
Surely,  the  province  of  science  is  to  interpret  Nature,  not 
just  to  stare  her  out  of  countenance  by  main  force ! 

STELLAR  PROBLEMS 

Very  much  the  same  sort  of  criticism  may  be  made 
respecting  the  present  scientific  methods  of  dealing  with 
the  problems  presented  by  the  stars.  Nothing  could  ex- 
cel the  care,  skill  and  industry  with  which  astronomers 
have  performed  the  drudgeries  of  observational  investi- 


INTRODUCTION  11 


gation  and  mathematical  computation,  bringing  virtually 
to  a  state  of  repletion  the  stock  of  ascertainable  data 
wherewith  to  erect  a  sound  and  comprehensive  urano- 
graphy.  Just  here,  however,  is  where  their  progress 
halts.  The  workmen  have  indeed  provided  and  delivered 
to  hand  the  building  materials,  but  the  architect  has  been 
wanting.  What  we  want  to  know,  and  what  astronomers 
cannot  tell  us,  is,  how  this  plethora  of  material  is  to  be  fit- 
ted together  ?  We  want  to  know,  specifically,  such  things 
as  these : 

Is  there  a  universe  beyond  our  own?  What  is  the 
meaning  of  the  great  aggregation  of  stars  in  the  Milky 
Way?  Why  are  so  many  millions  of  the  stars  contempor- 
aneously brilliant?  Is  there  any  rule  by  which  we  can  de- 
termine the  intrinsic  sizes  of  stars  ?  What  is  the  origin  of 
the  nebulae?  Why  do  they  rotate?  What  is  the  explan- 
ation of  their  diversity  of  form?  Why  do  the  velocities 
of  stars  vary  according  to  their  spectral  class  ?  Are  the 
stars  all  alike  in  chemical  composition?  How  do  they,  in 
spite  of  gravity,  preserve  themselves  aloof  from  one  an- 
other? Why  do  "maturer"  systems  revolve  more  rapidly 
than  those  more  youthful?  Is  there acentral  sun?  Is  there 
a  maximum  size  to  which  star  scan  attain?  What  is  the  ex- 
planation of  star  streams?  Why  is  the  radius  of  the  celes- 
tial circle  of  precession  the  same  as  the  inclination  of  the 
earth's  axis?  What  produces  the  sun's  flight  in  space? 
What  are  the  elements  of  its  orbit? 

To  all  such  questions,  elementary  though  they  are, 
contemporary  science  returns  no  answers  save  of  ad- 
mitted speculation. 

THE  DESTINY  OF  THE  UNIVERSE 

From  the  standpoint  of  general  philosophy  probably 
the  chief  cosmological  query  is  as  to  the  permanency  or 
impermanency  of  the  Present  Order.  According  to  the 
hierarchy  of  modern  science,  this  order  is  not  permanent, 
the  great  cosmic  machine  is  "running  down",  and  it  is 
only  a  question  of  time  till  it  shall  destroy  itself.  College 


12  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

professors  who  have  grown  gray  in  the  teaching  of  this 
vicious  and  altogether  erroneous  doctrine  have  doubtless 
become  hardened  to  its  monstrosity,  for  they  seem  to  pro- 
claim it  in  and  out  of  season  with  every  mark  of  proud 
paternity !  For  my  part,  I  regard  such  a  conclusion  as,  on 
the  face  of  it,  so  gross  a  reductio  ad  absurdum  as  by  itself 
to  refute  the  entire  process  of  ratiocination  by  which  it 
has  been  reached,  even  if  in  its  wake  lay,  one  after 
another,  complete  solutions  of  all  the  paramount  prob- 
lems above  considered,  instead  of  the  lengthening  trail  of 
incompetence  and  failure  that  really  does  mark  it. 

Recapitulating,  then,  we  find  our  modern  Argonauts 
of  science  starting  out  to  explore  and  interpret  the  uni- 
verse by,  first  of  all,  methodically  casting  overboard  that 
heretofore  faithful  compass  of  mankind,  the  natural  law 
of  cause  and  effect ;  stigmatizing,  as  behind  the  times, 
those  of  us  who  continue  to  cling  to  the  belief  that 
mechanical  effects,  whether  in  the  skies  or  in  the  labora- 
tory, can  derive  existence  only  from  preexisting  causes ; 
decrying  the  notion  that  gravitation  is  an  objective 
reality,  and  in  its  stead  substituting  the  metaphysical  ab- 
straction of  ' '  position ' ' ;  proclaiming  by  precept  the  law 
of  the  inverse  square,  and  inconsistently  employing  an 
admittedly  empirical  formula  in  practice ;  setting  up,  one 
after  another,  and  again  and  again,  spurious  hypotheses 
as  to  the  origin  of  cosmic  heat,  seemingly  for  the  mere 
sport  of  knocking  them  down ;  tendering  us  a  job  lot  of 
cosmogonies  from  which  to  make  choice,  not  one  of  which 
but  flouts  Nature  and  her  laws ;  promulgating  a  theory  of 
tides,  then  conclusively  disproving  it,  and  afterward, 
knowing  its  falsity,  continuing  nevertheless  to  teach  it  as 
true  and  as  a  ' '  guide ' '  to  the  observations ;  depending 
helplessly  upon  mechanical  implements  rather  than  upon 
the  intelligence  to  interpret  the  planets ;  asseverating  the 
random,  haphazard  and  spontaneous  nature  of  stellar 
motions,  and  in  the  same  breath  professing  to  be  search- 
ing out  the  laws  governing  this  randomness ;  and,  finally, 
impugning  the  integrity  of  Nature  and  recklessly  con- 
demning her  to  ignominious  death ! 


INTRODUCTION  13 


Here,  then,  is  the  net  result  of  two  centuries  of  New- 
tonian philosophy — of  the  labor  of  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  individuals  who,  in  one  capacity  or  another,  have  bent 
themselves  heart  and  soul  to  the  task  of  solving  these 
great  problems,  and  of  untold  millions  of  treasure  un- 
stintingly  poured  out  by  philanthropists  and  governments 
to  the  same  end !  Who  is  there  so  blind  as  not  to  see  that 
Newtonian  science  has  reached  the  limit  of  its  develop- 
ment f  Like  the  Ptolemaic  system,  it  is  only  an  approxi- 
mation to  the  ultimate  truth,  though,  to  be  sure,  a  very 
much  closer  approximation.  The  epicycle  system  broke 
down  of  its  own  weight  because  there  always  remained, 
after  each  cycle  superadded,  a  diminishing,  yet  still  ap- 
preciable, discrepancy  to  be  accounted  for.  Slight  as  this 
excess  must  have  seemed  at  the  last,  its  correction  was 
destined  never  to  be  achieved  by  the  then  time-honored 
method,  but  only  by  a  complete  overturning  of  the  system 
by  Copernicus  and  Kepler.  The  full  development  of  New- 
tonian theory  has  conducted  us  of  this  day  to  a  strangely 
similar  impasse.  There  is  now  that  apparently  trifling, 
but  really  crucial  decimal  of  Newcomb's  to  be  accounted 
for !  Every  effort  of  mathematics  has  been  exerted  to 
iron  it  out,  but  in  vain ;  and  it  is  only  fair  to  conclude  that 
it  is  permanently  beyond  the  power  of  prevailing  theory 
to  cope  with.  I  expect  to  prove  to  the  satisfaction  of  the 
reader  that  the  only  way  possible  to  overcome  this  ob- 
stacle is,  by  a  revolution  of  the  present-day  science  of 
astronomy  no  less  drastic  than  that  from  the  Ptolemaic 
to  the  Copernican,  a  revolution,  too,  which  will  abund- 
antly justify  itself  by  automatically  solving  all  the  para- 
mount problems  above  enumerated. 

The  Elusiveness  of  the  Obvious 

To  my  mind,  the  most  striking  mental  peculiarity  of 
mankind  in  the  past  has  been  its  proneness,  in  all  ages,  to 
focus  attention  on  the  things  at  a  distance  rather  than  on 
those  close  at  hand,  to  prefer  the  abstruse  to  the  simple, 
the  miraculous  to  the  natural,  the  obscure  to  the  obvious. 
In  fact,  the  epochal  events  in  the  life  of  Astronomy  have 


14  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

all  been  spectacular  revelations  of  truths  that  ought  to 
have  been  almost  intuitively  perceived.  The  conspicuous 
discs  of  the  sun  and  moon,  for  instance,  and  the  rounded 
outline  of  the  earth's  shadow  thrown  upon  the  latter  in 
eclipses,  are  phenomena  too  plain,  one  would  suppose,  for 
even  a  thoughtful  boy  to  misinterpret.  How,  again,  men 
in  their  sanity  could  for  fourteen  centuries  on  end — as  did 
the  Ptolemaists — prefer  to  believe  and  to  teach  that  the 
vast  heavens  rotate  daily  around  our  little  grain  of  dust, 
instead  of  the  latter  turning  upon  its  own  axis,  surpasses 
our  modern  understanding.  It  took  fifteen  centuries, 
from  Ptolemy  to  Kepler,  to  evolve  a  mind  capable  of  con- 
ceiving the  simple  notion  that  circulating  bodies — the 
moon  and  planets — might  turn  around  their  primaries  in 
another  kind  of  curve  than  a  circle,  and  it  took  even  the 
great  mind  of  Kepler  a  score  of  years  of  toilsome  effort 
to  gestate  the  thought.  And  yet,  again,  not  until  a  paltry 
two  centuries  ago  did  a  Newton  arise  to  suggest  and 
prove  that  gravitation  extends  beyond  our  atmosphere. 
It  has  been  said  of  Bismarck  that  his  success  as  a  states- 
man largely  lay  in  frankly  avowing  his  true  motives,  be- 
cause he  had  observed  that  openness  in  a  diplomat  was 
the  last  thing  generally  looked  for,  and  hence  was  a  better 
cloak  than  any  form  of  deceit  could  be.  The  reason  the 
obvious  in  Nature  goes  unrecognized  so  long  is  because 
artful  man  misdoubts  her  plain  message  and  in  a  spirit  of 
subtlety  reads  in  a  farrago  of  irrelevancies  between  the 
lines.  Lovers  of  Dickens  will  recall  Mr.  Pickwick's  mo- 
mentous antiquarian  discovery,  on  the  premises  of  one 
Bill  Stumps,  of  a  stone  bearing  a  curious  legend  out  of 
which  Mr.  Pickwick  drew  some  twenty-seven  recondite 
meanings,  when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  according  to  the 
veracious  graver  himself,  the  inscription  read,  simply, 
"Bill  Stumps,  his  mark".  If  Mr.  Pickwick  could  come  to 
"life"  again,  I  fancy  that  he  would  find  himself  very 
much  at  home  in  the  society  of  present-day  astronomers. 

A  great  orator  has  said  that  most  men  find  it  easy 
enough  to  believe  in  miracles  having  occurred  two  thou- 
sand or  more  years  ago,  or  that  they  will  again  occur 


INTRODUCTION  15 


two  thousand  years  hence,  but  that  it  is  next  to  impossible 
to  find  any  one  credulous  enough  to  believe  in  their  hap- 
pening to-day.  Paraphrasing  this  epigram,  I  would  say 
of  astronomers  that  they  do  not  hesitate  to  postulate 
miracles  as  taking  place  far  up  in  the  heavens,  or  deep  in 
past  time,  while  they  indignantly  scout  the  possibility  of 
such  things  taking  place  right  here  and  now.  Thus,  they 
impudently  assume  that  stars  and  planets  move  sponta- 
neously, but  they  are  sane  enough  to  know  that  bullets 
remain  useless  without  powder;  they  nonchalantly  as- 
sume that  nebulae  revolve  of  their  own  accord,  but  would 
classify  as  defective  a  child  that  would  expect  as  much  of 
a  mere  squirrel- wheel. 

UNUM  versus  OMNES 

On  the  theory  of  probabilities,  the  odds  in  every  gen- 
eration are  a  billion  to  one  against  the  originator  of  an 
idea  being  right  and  the  world  wrong.  This  formidable 
preponderance  of  numbers  against  him  has  doubtless 
awed  many  a  timid,  but  correct,  thinker  into  silence,  and 
cast  many  a  stone  in  the  path  of  human  progress.  Few  of 
us,  I  dare  say,  ever  stop  to  reflect  that  every  valuable 
idea  and  item  of  information  has  incipently  been  handi- 
capped by  identically  these  odds,  and  that  all  that  man- 
kind has  garnered,  or  can  ever  acquire,  in  the  way  of  use- 
ful knowledge  is  merely  the  sum  of  these  minority-of-one 
discoveries  that  have  won  their  way  through  gauntlets  of 
criticism  to  general  acceptance.  In  every  ship 's  company, 
at  the  close  of  every  voyage,  there  is  invariably  one  who 
must  be  the  first  to  sight  port.  Natural  truth  exists  in- 
dependently of  both  human  wishes  and  opinions,  and  can- 
not be  settled  one  way  or  the  other  by  a  plebiscite,  or  even 
by  a  council  of  the  wisest  of  one 's  own  generation.  It  is  re- 
lated of  Newton,  for  instance,  that,  although  he  survived 
for  forty  years  the  publication  of  his  great  work,  The 
Principia,  he  did  not  have  upwards  of  twenty  followers  in 
all  England  at  the  time  of  his  death,  and  that  it  was  not 
until  ten  years  later  that  his  doctrines  were  allowed  to  be 


16  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

taught  at  Cambridge  and  Oxford  in  competition  with 
those  of  Descartes !  Truly,  a  prophet  is  often  without 
honor  in  his  own  generation  as  well  as  in  his  own  country. 
0  tempora !  0  mores !  To-day  Newton 's  fame  fills  the 
world,  and  a  new  generation  has  arisen  that  honors  his 
opinions  above  Nature's  truths,  and  even  counts  it  a 
virtue  to  shield  his  errors  against  exposure  and  correc- 
tion! 

The  generality  of  men  labor  under  the  delusion  that 
in  the  serene  domain  of  pure  science  the  day  is  past  when 
selfish  considerations  and  bigotry  cut  a  figure  in  its  de- 
velopment. This  is  a  pathetic  mistake.  Like  any  prosaic, 
commercial  business,  the  established  system  of  astronomy 
has  been  virtually  capitalized  in  many  ways,  and  this 
capital  calls  for  protection  from  those  holding  its  shares, 
and  in  proportion  to  the  size  of  such  holdings.  Thousands 
of  copyrighted  books  and  pamphlets,  the  reputations  of 
famous  scholars,  their  salaried  positions,  and  even  their 
characters  as  sincere  and  truthful  men,  are,  in  a  way, 
wagered  upon  the  vindication  of  the  traditional  dogmas 
of  the  science.  They  vouch,  in  effect :  that  the  universe  is 
fleeting ;  that  the  law  of  gravitation  is  at  once  theoreti- 
cally exact,  but  objectively  inexact;  that  the  law  of  equi- 
librium does  not  hold  good  of  cosmic  bodies ;  that  their 
theory  of  tides  is  per  se  true,  though  false  to  nature ;  that 
gravitation  is  a  mere  abstraction  and  not  a  conservable 
force ;  that  mechanical  motions  exist  without  antecedent 
causes — but  the  list  is  endless. 

The  question  as  to  whether  these  doctrines  are  true 
or  not,  is  no  longer  one  for  the  profession  of  astronomers 
to  decide,  but  for  the  educated  world  at  large.  To  this 
latter  court  I  now  appeal.  The  highest  astronomical 
court  has  time  and  again  affirmed  and  reaffirmed  these 
monstrous  propositions,  has  repeatedly  refused  reargu- 
ments,  and,  in  any  event,  is  the  real  defendant  in  the  mat- 
ters at  issue  and  cannot  be  prudently  trusted  to  render  a 
just  and  impartial  decision  in  a  suit  involving  the  reten- 
tion of  all  that  it  has  so  long  stood  for.  Astronomers  have 
long  recognized  that  their  real  refuge  is  in  sphinx-like 


INTRODUCTION  17 


silence,  not  in  debate ;  in  supercilious  aloofness,  and  not 
in  democratic  fellowship ;  in  the  assumption  of  a  pontif- 
ical authority  that  spurns  alike  question  and  questioner, 
and  leaves  the  matter  where  it  started.  This  is  scarcely 
the  place  for  private  confidences,  and  so  I  forbear  to  cite 
specific  instances  in  support  of  the  testimony  of  hundreds 
more  of  the  subtle  influences  at  work  to  stifle  candid 
criticism  and  muzzle  the  scientific  skeptic.  Of  course,  it  is 
not  to  be  expected  that  avowals  of  this  policy  of  suppres- 
sion, or  by  what  underhand  means  it  is  designed  to  be 
made  effective,  should  be  published  broadcast ;  yet  that  it 
is  not  a  mere  creation  of  a  heated  imagination  but  a  sub- 
stantial fact  to  be  reckoned  with,  sufficiently  appears  be- 
tween the  lines  of  the  following  passage  from  the  pen  of 
Doctor  Charles  Gr.  Abbot,  the  eminent  Director  of  the 
Smithsonian  Astrophysical  Observatory  at  Washington. 
In  his  magnum  opus  (The  Sun,  p.  8)  he  says : 

Every  large  scientific  institution  or  observatory  has  almost 
daily  communications  from  persons  of  very  moderate  attainments 
who  presume  to  question,  nay  rather  to  spurn,  the  most  well-at- 
tested facts  of  human  knowledge.  Such  persons  seem  to  prefer 
especially  to  direct  their  attacks  on  the  following  facts:  the 
Copernican  system ;  the  law  of  universal  gravitation ;  the  first  and 
second  laws  of  energy ;  and,  finally,  the  high  temperature  of  the 
sun.  No  argument  can  refute  them,  because  they  have  not  the 
requisite  learning  to  comprehend  it,  which  is  no  disgrace,  but 
which  should  make  men  modest  enough  to  have  faith  in  those  who 
excel  them  immeasurably.  Hence  it  is  the  policy  of  most  scien- 
tific institutions  to  avoid  entirely  discussions  of  these  subjects 
with  such  correspondents. 

Professor  Newcomb  tells,  in  his  Reminiscences  of  an  As- 
tronomer, of  such  a  critic  who  called  upon  him  and  announced  his 
disbelief  in  Sir  Isaac  Newton's  theory  of  gravitation.  Professor 
Newcomb  proposed  to  the  skeptic  that  he  jump  out  of  the  window 
and  convince  himself  of  the  existence  of  gravitation.  Being  thus 
pressed,  the  visitor  stated  that  he  believed  that  gravitation  ex- 
tended no  further  than  the  air,  and  did  not  go  up  to  the  moon. 
Professor  Newcomb  asked  him  if  he  had  ever  been  there  to  see, 
and  when  his  caller  answered  'No',  replied  that,  until  one  of  them 
could  go  to  the  moon  and  try  the  experiment,  he  doubted  if  they 
could  ever  agree ! 


18  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

Since  the  initial  publication  of  this  work,  in  March, 
1912,  many  of  the  ideas  therein  for  the  first  time  present- 
ed to  the  world  have  reappeared  in  the  public  prints,  but 
always  fugitively,  in  strange  uniforms,  and  impressed 
into  the  service  of  alien  doctrines  that  I  have  taken  up 
arms  against.  This  state  of  affairs  leads  me  to  empha- 
size the  truism  that  a  system  of  philosophy  or  science, 
such  even  as  my  own,  like  an  automobile  or  any  other 
complicated  mechanical  machine,  is  useful  and  valuable 
only  as  an  assembled  whole.  What  I  have  aimed  to  do, 
and  what  I  venture  to  believe  I  have  succeeded  in  accom- 
plishing is,  in  Emerson's  pregnant  phrase,  to  reveal  the 
universe  "as  a  transparent  law,  not  a  mass  of  facts' ' ;  or, 
in  concreter  terms,  as  an  eternal,  self-energizing,  self- 
regulating  entity,  coordinated  throughout  by  a  single 
(necessarily  single)  underlying  dynamical  principle — 
GRAVITATION.  Some,  indeed,  may  say  that  I  have  cast  my 
net  too  wide ;  that  I  have  presumptuously  attempted  to 
solve  too  many  problems  at  one  stroke.  I  do  not  myself 
think  so ;  not,  indeed,  because  I  venture  to  assert  that  my 
offered  solutions  are  conclusive  and  final,  but  because  the 
very  nature  of  my  undertaking  involves  comprehensive 
treatment.  A  globe-map  of  the  earth,  however  slightly 
filled  in,  is  quite  as  essential  to  a  correct  knowledge  of 
geography  as  a  full  complement  of  scattered  maps  of  de- 
tail. In  this  book  I  seek  to  compress  the  universe  about 
us  into  a  single  concept,  a  sort  of  mental  universe-map,  as 
it  were,  in  which  the  sum  of  creation  may  be  apprehended 
as  the  automatic  unit  that  our  intelligence  tells  us  it  must 
be  in  order  to  exhibit  the  infinite  harmonies  it  does. 

The  process  of  building  up  a  science  such  as  astron- 
omy has  often  been  likened  to  that  of  erecting  a  great 
cathedral.  The  resemblance  is  palpable  enough,  but  there 
is  a  contrast  which  here  more  deserves  our  notice.  In  the 
case  of  the  cathedral,  the  design  in  the  mind  of  the  archi- 
tect comes  first  in  order  of  time,  following  which,  bricks, 
stones  and  timber  are  all  manufactured,  cut  and  fash- 
ioned to  fit  their  predestined  places,  and  then  respectively 
delivered  upon  the  premises  systematically  so  as  to  fore- 


INTRODUCTION  19 


stall  possible  mistakes  and  confusion.  Morever,  the  archi- 
tect takes  the  builder  into  his  counsels,  supplies  him  with 
duplicate  plans  and  specifications,  and  in  every  other  way 
cooperates  with  him  throughout.  In  the  case  of  con- 
structing a  science,  all  this  is  reversed.  The  designer 
never  appears ;  there  are  no  plans  or  specifications ;  facts 
— the  building  materials — are  acquired  haphazard  and 
at  awkward  intervals ;  the  very  size  of  the  foundation  is 
unknown,  as  are  likewise  the  height,  the  breadth  and  the 
general  arrangement  of  the  superstructure.  Taking  facts 
as  they  arrived,  astronomers  have  tried  to  make  progress 
as  they  went  along,  often  mistaking  capstone  for  corner- 
stone, cornice  for  girder,  lintel  for  sill — in  short,  creating 
a  structure,  it  is  true,  but  one  weirdly  different  from  what 
it  would  have  been  had  all  the  materials  been  available 
from  the  very  outset.  Now,  thanks  to  time  and  human  in- 
dustry, all  the  facts  are  simultaneously  before  our  eyes 
inviting  and  challenging  us  to  test  our  architectual  pow- 
ers afresh.  Shall  we  decline  the  challenge! 

While  it  is  true  that  my  system  is  still  so  novel  as  not 
yet  to  have  become  authoritatively  recognized  and  might, 
therefore,  not  unreasonably  be  supposed  too  untried  for 
laymen  to  trust  their  unaided  judgment  upon,  yet  such 
seems  to  me  its  simplicity  that  I  believe  every  studiously 
inclined  reader  who  possesses  even  a  sophomoric  knowl- 
edge of  descriptive  astronomy  will  be  able  to  follow  my 
thesis  step  by  step  to  its  conclusion  and  form  an  intelli- 
gent opinion  as  to  its  merits.  My  special  appeal  is  directed 
to  that  large  body  of  professional  men  of  scientific  lean- 
ings who  aim  at  broad  generalizations  as  a  means  of 
classifying  and  memorizing  the  essentials  of  the  sciences, 
believing,  as  I  do,  that  among  this  class  are  to  be  found,  in 
happiest  combination,  those  primary  judicial  qualifica- 
tions of  impartiality,  learning  and  discretion,  of  which  the 
greatest  and  rarest  is  assuredly  impartiality. 

I  regret  exceedingly  being  unable,  through  force  of 
circumstances  that  may  be  safely  left  to  the  reader's 
imagination,  to  embellish  the  work  with  helpful  illustra- 
tions, and,  for  the  same  reason,  being  obliged  to  compress 


20  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

my  material  into  the  least  possible  compass.  However, 
I  comfort  myself  with  the  reflection  that  the  handful  of 
persons  who  may  be  drawn  to  read  a  work  of  this  charac- 
ter will  doubtless  already  be  sufficiently  familiar  with 
the  general  facts  of  astronomy  as  to  be  able  to  supply 
from  their  own  store  of  knowledge  whatever  may  in- 
advertently be  missing.  To  the  scattered  few  who  do  not 
belong  to  this  class,  but  who  desire  to  improve  their 
knowledge  in  this  field,  I  respectfully  recommend  Flam- 
marion  and  Gore 's  Popular  Astronomy  as  incomparably 
the  best  general  work,  both  for  text  and  illustration,  that 
has  come  under  my  notice.  As  a  periodical  stimulus  to 
keep  one's  interest  constantly  aflame  in  this,  the  noblest 
and  most  enthralling  of  secular  subjects,  I  would  mention, 
with  earnest  commendation,  the  magazine  of  the  same 
name,  Popular  Astronomy,  published  at  Northfield,  Minn. 


In  order  to  give  the  reader  a  general  idea  of  my 
system,  before  plunging  into  its  detailed  discussion  and 
proofs,  I  respectfully  invite  his  attention  to  the  following 
list  of  a  few  of  the 

NOVEL  FEATURES  OF  THE  PROPOSED  SYSTEM 

1.  The  present  order  of  the  universe  is  potentially 
eternal. 

2.  Newton's  law  of  gravitation  is  literally  exact  in 
nature. 

3.  Hotness  is  the  normal  and  persisting  state  of 
matter  while  under  pressure.    The  sun  is  therefore  per- 
ennially self -heating,  and  the  temperature  of  stars  is  a 
function  of  their  mass. 

4.  The  fundamental  law  of  equilibrium,  namely, 
that  freely    falling  bodies  seek  their  lowest    center  of 
gravity,  is  of  the  prime  essence  of  gravitation,  and  science 


INTRODUCTION  21 


has  committed  a  grave  blunder  in  concluding  too  careless- 
ly that  by  falling  in  vacuo  bodies  circumvent  the  law. 

5.  By  basing  my  theory  of  tides  on  the  strict  law  of 
equilibrium  instead  of  on  the  spurious  exception,  I  have 
succeeded  in  demonstrating ;  (1)  that  the  heights  of  the 
tides  are  commensurate  with  the  dynamical  causes  I  as- 
sign to  them,  (2)  that  the  times  of  high  and  low  tides  are 
synchronous  with  those  causes,  and  not  eight  hours  or 
more  apart,  (3)  that  the  sun,  and  not  the  moon,  is  the 
chief   cause  of  the  tides,    notwithstanding  the  seeming 
paradox,  and  (4)  that,  far  from  retarding  the  earth's 
axial  rotation,  the  tides  actually  cause  it ! 

6.  The  principle  of  gravitation  is  not  restricted  to 
the  limits  of  our  system,  as  Newton  construed  it,  but  ex- 
tends throughout  and  across  the  whole  length  and  breadth 
of  the  universe,  organizing  the  latter  into  a  single  coordi- 
nate unit. 

7.  The  true  pole  of  the  ecliptic  is  a  mathematical 
point  situated  about  a  half  light  year  from  us,  in  the  line 
of  the  earth's  axis  extended,  and  marks  the  direction  in 
which  our  solar  system  is  falling  in  response  to  the  joint, 
or  resultant,  attraction  of  the  stars. 

8.  However,  we  are  not  falling  in  a  direct  line,  but 
in  a  huge  conical  spiral  path,  like  that  of  a  circling  falcon 
approaching  the  earth.     The  length  of  a  single  coil  of 
this  spiral  is  approximately  five  million,  million  miles, 
its  describing  period  about  26,000  years,  and  its  mean 
plane  very  nearly  that  of  the  ecliptic.    The  apex  and  an- 
tapex  of  the  sun 's  way  are  respectively  the  fore  and  aft 
celestial  ends  of  the  double  tangent  to  this  curve  passing 
through  the  sun's  center. 

9.  This  movement  of  the  solar  system  is  due  to  the 
gyroscopic  reaction  resulting  from  the  whirling  of  the 
system  in  the  opposite  direction  about  its  own  axis. 

10.     The  revolution  of  the  planets  around  the  sun  is 
a  vortical,  or  whirlpool,  effect  produced  and  maintained 


22  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

by  the  gravitational  suction  emanating  from  the  stars  and 
drawing  us  toward  the  true  pole  of  the  ecliptic ;  and  the 
same  explanation  applies  equally  to  the  rotations  of  the 
subordinate  systems  around  their  respective  primaries. 

11.  The  earth  is  a  simple  object  in  the  act  of  falling, 
forever    poised  on    its  lowest    center  of    gravity.     Its 
heavier,  or  lower,  hemisphere  is,  of  course,  the  northern, 
as  the  position  of  the  continents  sufficiently  testifies. 

12.  The  sun  (a  typical  star)  is  essentially  a  hollow 
sphere  normally  undergoing  every  instant  multitudinous 
minor  explosions  all  over  his  vast  surface.    His  periodic- 
al "  spots "  are  due  to  this  cause,  only  on  a  larger  scale, 
and  their  periodicity,  it  will  be  found,  is  susceptible  of 
ready  explanation.    Morever,  every  100,000  years  or  so 
the  sun  explodes  centrally,  with  such  extreme  violence  as 
to  become  what  is  technically  known  as  a  "temporary" 
or  "new"  star,  giving  rise,  by  the  same  token,  to  a  "neb- 
ula", or  cloud  of  molten  debris,  which  the  circulating 
planets,  ever  spinning  in  their  orbits,  gradually  sweep  up, 
and  eventually  clear  away,  save  for  some  lingering  vesti- 
ges of  impalpable  dust  that  we  perceive  on  dark  nights  as 
the  "zodiacal  light"  and  " gegenschein. " 

13.  Comets  are  fragments  injected  into  our  system 
by  neighboring  stars,  and  their  peculiarities  are  all  trace- 
able to  the  circumstance  of  their  advent  having  been  too 
recent   to  allow   time  for    their  complete    assimilation. 
Asteroids,  or  at  least  some  of  them,  are  what  may  be 
termed  domesticated  comets. 

14.  The  Milky  Way  is  a  vortical  ring  of  stars  re- 
volving under  the  influence  of  the  resultant  of  the  attrac- 
tions of  an  immeasurably  greater  "universe"  than  itself. 
However,  be  the  material  universe  finite  or  infinite  in 
fact,  there    is  nothing  in   my  theory  inconsistent    with 
either  hypothesis. 

15.  Viewing    the  physical    universe  in    its    broad 
philosophical  aspect  as  the  creation  of  a  Designer,  I  in- 
cline toward  the  conclusion  that  the  organization  of  the 


INTRODUCTION  23 


sum  of  the  universe  into  a  coordinated  whole  is  not  the 
ulterior  purpose,  but  rather  a  necessary  first  condition  to 
the  production,  operation  and  development  of  its  compo- 
nent individual  planetary  systems.  For,  only  in  these 
relatively  minute  units  alone  do  the  conditions  exist  for 
the  generation,  propagation,  and  evolution  of  living  or- 
ganisms, which  is  the  Ulterior  Purpose.  The  Cycle  of 
this  Evolution  is  not,  as  heretofore  supposed,  from  the 
first  forming  of  a  star  out  of  cosmic  dust  to  the  final  con- 
dition of  a  dark,  cold,  inert  clinker,  but  from  one  solar 
paroxysmal  explosion  to  the  next — From  Nebula  to  Neb- 
ula,— a  cycle  endlessly  repeated,  with  infinite  permuta- 
tions and  combinations. 


II 


NEWTON'S  THEOEY  OF  PLANETARY 

MOTIONS 

• ' 

PERHAPS  the  first  system  of  celestial  motions 
meriting  the  name  scientific  was  that  devised  by 
Claudius  Ptolemy,  who  lived  about  the  middle  of 
the  second  century  of  our  era.  According  to  him,  the  earth 
was  the  center  of  the  universe  around  which  revolved 
daily,  in  the  order  of  their  supposed  distances  from  it,  the 
Moon,  Mercury,  Venus,  the  Sun,  Mars,  Jupiter,  Saturn, 
and  the  stars.  Beyond  the  stars,  again,  was  the  Primum 
Mobile,  or  Prime  Mover.  To  prevent  the  planets  and 
stars  from  falling  down  upon  the  earth,  Ptolemy  con- 
ceived of  them  as  set  in  separate  crystalline  spheres ;  and 
these  latter,  he  supposed,  by  the  noises  of  their  rotation, 
produced  the  "  music  of  the  spheres ".  Strange  to  say, 
this  notion  of  celestial  harmonies  survived  the  discovery 
of  Copernicus,  for  Kepler  speaks  of  it,  and  assigns  to 
Jupiter  and  Saturn  the  bass,  to  Mars  the  tenor,  to  Venus 
the  Contralto,  and  to  Mercury  the  soprano  parts  in  this 
heavenly  chorus. 

Having  assumed  that  all  the  celestial  bodies  rotated 
around  our  earth,  it  was  quite  natural  to  surmise,  in  the 
first  instance,  that  they  did  so  in  exact  circles.  In  our 
practical  age  we  should  be  apt  to  do  the  same,  were  we 
approaching  the  problem  for  the  first  time;  but  if  we 
should  then  speedily  find  that  observation  materially  con- 
tradicted theory,  we  would  doubtless  promptly  try  out 
some  other  sort  of  curve  in  the  effort  to  find  a  short  cut. 
This  simple  expedient  the  ancients  seem  never  to  have 
thought  of,  for  those  were  the  halcyon  days  of  deductive 


PLANETARY  MOTIONS  25 

philosophy,  when  man  sought  to  solve  nature  by  pre- 
sumptuously trying  to  read  the  mind  of  the  Infinite  by 
divination,  instead  of  indirectly,  through  His  works. 
They  reasoned,  metaphysically,  that  the  Creator  would 
not  choose  any  but  the  ' '  perfect  curve  "  for  the  paths  of 
the  celestial  bodies ;  and  they  would  have  accounted  it 
blasphemy  in  anyone  who  might  have  suggested  an  alter- 
native idea.  Accordingly,  when  systematic  observation 
showed  certain  vagaries  of  movement  on  the  part  of  the 
planets,  instead  of  adopting  the  obvious  course  and  ex- 
perimenting with  other  possible  curves,  they  invented  the 
device  known  as  epicycles ; — that  is  to  say,  they  imagined 
the  planet,  in  addition  to  revolving  in  one  great  circle,  to 
revolve  also  in  a  second,  smaller  circle,  whose  center, 
rather  than  the  planet's  center,  progressed  along  the  cir- 
cumference of  the  main  curve.  One  such  epicycle  proving 
insufficient,  nowise  daunted,  they  postulated  a  second 
epicycle  grafted  upon  the  first,  and  so  on  indefinitely, 
until,  by  the  time  of  Copernicus,  they  had  as  many  as 
seventy  such  arrangements  piled  one  upon  the  other ! 

Such,  then,  was  the  state  of  theoretical  astronomy  at 
the  close  of  the  regime  of  the  Ptolemaic  system,  whose 
rule,  though  not  actually  ended,  was  at  least  foredoomed 
by  the  publication  of  Nicholas  Copernicus'  (1473-1543) 
great  work,  De  Orbium  Coelestiwn  Revolutionibus,  in  the 
very  year  of  the  author 's  death.  In  this  treatise  Coper- 
nicus taught  that  the  sun,  and  not  the  earth,  is  the  center 
of  our  system,  that  the  moon  revolves  around  the  earth, 
and  that  the  earth  and  all  the  rest  of  the  then  known 
planets  revolve  around  the  sun  in  circular  orbits.  The 
only  material  mistake  he  made  lay  in  perpetuating  this 
last  doctrine,  inherited,  as  it  was,  from  the  older  system ; 
but  in  extenuation  it  should  be  mentioned  that  the  gen- 
eral reform  brought  about  by  him  was  so  basic  as  to  ren- 
der for  a  time  unavailable  the  tangled  skein  of  mathe- 
matical material  accumulated  by  his  predecessors. 

As  things  turned  out,  it  would  have  been  a  lasting  re- 
flection on  the  perspicacity  of  philosophers  had  the  dis- 
coveries of  Copernicus  been  delayed  a  half  century  or  so 


26 FEOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

longer;  for  by  that  time  Galileo  (1564-1642)  had  im- 
proved the  telescope,  and  with  its  help  had  observed  the 
phases  of  Venus  and  f  olloAved  the  satellite  system  of  Ju- 
piter through  several  cycles  of  rotation.  Had  Copernicus 
been  in  possession  of  these  significant  facts,  much  of  the 
glory  of  his  achievement  would  have  been  lost. 

Fortunately,  the  cycle  and  epicycle  fallacy,  too,  was 
destined  not  to  survive  long;  for  John  Kepler  (1571- 
1630),  in  the  year  1627,  gave  it  its  quietus  when  he  pub- 
lished his  three  laws  of  planetary  motion,  as  follows : 

1.  The  planets  revolve  in  ellipses. 

2.  The    radius  vector  passes  over  equal    areas  in 
equal  times. 

3.  The  cubes  of  their  mean  distances  are  propor- 
tional to  the  squares  of  their  periodic  times. 

Although  later  researches  have  shown  these  laws  not 
to  be  exactly  true,  they  are  so  close  an  approximation  to 
the  truth  that  modern  astronomers  seem  to  have  tacitly 
agreed  among  themselves  to  shut  their  eyes  to  the  ob- 
served discrepancies  as  immaterial — alas,  to  the  very 
great  detriment  of  the  science!  In  estimating  the  true 
value  of  Kepler 's  contribution  to  astronomy,  it  is  impor- 
tant to  remember  that  his  discoveries  were  purely  empiri- 
cal, and  that  they  were,  arrived  at  without  reference  either 
to  the  principle  of  gravitation  or  to  the  fact  of  the  sun's 
flight.  The  story  of  Kepler 's  labors  and  privations  in  the 
pursuit  of  his  quest  is  a  tragic  one,  all  the  more  so  because 
of  the  perverse  genius  he  displayed  in  so  long  eluding  the 
obvious.  If  only  he  had  had  the  sagacity  when  he  began 
his  labors  to  ask  himself  the  seemingly  self-propounding 
question, — May  not  the  planets  move  in  curves  other  than 
circles? — he  would  unquestionably  have  shortened  to  a 
period  of  weeks,  or  even  days,  the  score  of  years  that  his 
task  actually  consumed.  What  a  travesty  on  human  in- 
telligence !  Fourteen  centuries  to  evolve  the  simple  idea 
that  the  earth,  instead  of  the  universe,  rotates  on  its  axis 
once  in  twenty-four  hours !  Fifteen  centuries  to  prompt 


PLANETARY  MOTIONS  27 

the  query, — Why  may  not  the  planetary  orbits  be  other 
than  circular?  These  two  ideas,  epochal  though  they 
proved,  were  by  no  means  strokes  of  genius,  but  only  the 
prosaic  promptings  of  common  sense  erupting  through 
the  smothering  strata  of  superstition,  tradition,  and 
mathematical  abstrusities  that  the  wiseacres  of  earlier 
centuries  had  heaped  up.  So  far  as  the  mathematical 
proof  was  concerned,  that  was  only  a  matter  of  rules  and 
industry,  once  given  the  clue.  Clearly,  the  two  most  im- 
portant lessons  of  astronomical  history  are,  (1)  that 
vigilant  skepticism  is  the  price  of  progress,  and  (2)  that 
investigation  should  begin  with  the  near  and  obvious. 

The  next  great  name  in  the  development  of  the 
science  is  that  of  Rene  Descartes  (1596-1650),  although 
he  is  seldom  thought  of  as  an  astronomer,  but  rather  as  a 
philosopher  and  mathematician.  I  mention  him  here, 
partly  because  it  was  his  cult  whose  ascendancy  over  the 
world  of  thought  for  almost  a  century  after  his  death 
was  great  enough  to  bar  out  of  England's  schools  the 
teachings  of  her  own  son,  Sir  Isaac  Newton  (1642-1727), 
during  the  whole  of  that  philosopher's  long  life,  and 
partly  because  he,  Descartes,  was  the  originator  of  the 
Vortical  theory  of  planetary  motions;  a  theory  which, 
though  utterly  impractical  as  he  conceived  it,  we  shall 
nevertheless  find  to  be  true  in  principle  when  combined 
with  the  workings  of  universal  gravitation. 

It  is  with  sincere  regret  that  I  must  confess  my  ina- 
bility to  share  the  world's  extravagant  estimate  of  New- 
ton as  a  philosophical  astronomer.  As  a  mathematician 
he  may  possibly  have  been  supreme ;  but  of  this  I  am  not 
competent  to  judge.  Was  it  not  Huxley  who  first  said 
that  you  cannot  take  out  of  mathematics  more  than  you 
put  in  it — meaning,  that  if  you  start  figuring  upon  false 
premises  you  cannot  arrive  at  useful  results'?  Because 
a  man  is  a  mathematical  genius,  does  not  signify  that  he 
is  equally  great,  or  even  great  at  all,  as  a  theorist  or  con- 
structor. Ptolemy  was  a  mathematician  of  the  first 
order,  but  his  crystalline  spheres  and  epicycles  were,  for 
all  that,  fantastic  unnrealities.  In  our  day  the  Nebular 
Hypothesis  of  Laplace  (perhaps  a  greater  natural  mathe- 


28 FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

matician  than  Newton)  was  universally  hailed  as  the  su- 
premest  conception  of  man,  but  we  have  lived  to  see  it 
laid  aside.  Newton,  too,  0  hero-worshiping  reader,  was 
ordinary  flesh  and  blood  like  ourselves,  and  fallible  even 
as  Ptolemy  or  Laplace.  Not  only  that,  but  he  lived  in  an 
age  when  the  bible  was  still  regarded  as  a  scientific 
authority ;  when  the  Inquisition  was  not  yet  dead ;  when 
witch-burning  was  a  religious  rite ;  when  the  earth  and 
the  entire  solar  system  were  generally  believed  to  be  only 
a  few  thousand  years  old ;  when  Uranus,  Neptune  and  the 
asteroids  had  not  yet  been  discovered;  when  the  sun's 
motion  was  not  even  guessed;  when  the  spectroscope  was 
undreamed  of ;  before  the  mechanical  theory  of  heat  was 
discovered ;  before  the  accuracy  of  his  law  of  the  inverse 
square  had  been  impugned ;  and  before  his  theory  of  tides 
had  been  weighed  in  the  balance  and  found  wanting.  Shall 
we  now  wave  aside  these  important  considerations,  and, 
with  the  bigot's  finality,  proclaim  that  "Newton's  science 
is  good  enough  for  us ' ',  and  that,  hedged  about  though  he 
was  with  the  narrow  limitations  of  his  age,  he  could  com- 
mit no  error?  Now  that  we  know  so  many  more  basic 
astronomical  facts  than  Newton  did,  why  should  we  seek 
to  crowd  them  all  into  the  superstructure  of  theory  only, 
rather  than  to  employ  them  in  broadening,  strengthen- 
ing, repairing,  and  remodeling  the  foundations  that  stand 
in  such  sore  need  of  attention  ? 

For  a  reason  easy  enough  to  understand,  the  field  of 
astronomy  since  Newton's  death  particularly,  has  be- 
come monopolized  by  mathematicians  to  the  exclusion  of 
everyone  else.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  decry  mathematics 
as  such,  since  it  is  verily  the  only  exact  science  we  have, 
or  to  charge  mathematicians,  as  a  class,  with  being  worse 
versed  in  their  subject  than  other  professional  men  in 
theirs.  On  the  other  hand,  I  can  scarcely  agree  with 
Doctor  Abbot  that  mathematicians  so  '  '  immeasurably  ex- 
cel" their  fellowmen  that  they  can  afford  to  despise  ex- 
traneous suggestions,  nor  with  Doctor  Thomas  Jefferson 
Jackson  See,  the  celebrated  mathematician  and  astron- 
omer, who  says,  "not  only  must  the  astronomer  be  the 
wisest  and  intellectually  the  most  penetrating  of  men,  but 


PLANETARY  MOTIONS  29 

in  order  to  be  a  discoverer  of  the  first  order  lie  must  be 
just  in  his  habits  of  mind  and  wholly  devoted  to  the 
truth."  As  long  as  mathematicians  exclusively  preempt 
the  field  of  astronomy  and  at  the  same  time  continue  to 
entertain  such  complacent  sentiments  regarding  them- 
selves, it  will  be  vain  to  expect  any  radical  reform  within 
their  ranks,  however  much  it  may  be  needed. 

The  expression,  "figures  don't  lie",  is  the  vulgar 
equivalent  of,  "mathematics  is  an  exact  science."  But 
the  figures  we  start  with  must  be  accurate,  and  no  degree 
of  mathematical  skill  can  bring  out  a  correct  result  unless 
they  are.  It  is  related  of  a  certain  noted  bridge-archi- 
tect, now  deceased,  that  he  bankrupted  his  concern  by 
neglecting,  in  one  of  his  otherwise  accurate  estimates,  the 
little  formality  of  multiplying  his  final  result  by  two, 
overlooking  for  the  moment  that  every  bridge  must  have 
two  sides. 

Now,  the  simple  moral  of  this  digression  is,  that  New- 
ton, in  his  attempt  to  solve  the  dynamical  problems  of  the 
universe,  neglected  to  take  into  the  reckoning  several  es- 
sential factors  in  his  problem — (for  the  very  good  reason 
that  he  did  not  know  of  their  existence) — hence  his 
theories  and  conclusions,  if  not  absolutely  worthless,  are 
at  least  amendable.  He  assumed  that  the  solar  system 
was  a  universe  unto  itself,  completely  independent  of  and 
dissociated  from  the  stars  in  general.  When,  therefore, 
he  spoke  of  gravitation  as  being  "universal",  he  misused 
that  adjective,  inasmuch  as  he  incongruously  restricted 
its  application  to  what  we  know  now  is  little  more  than  a 
molecule  in  the  total  universe  of  matter.  In  other  words, 
he  took  into  consideration  only  the  mutual  attractions 
within  the  system,  but  he  did  not  take  into  account  the 
stupendous  reactions  upon  that  system  arising  out  of  the 
attraction  between  it,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  rest  of  the 
universe,  on  the  other.  Like  the  bridge  architect,  he 
failed  to  multiply  by  two ! 

It  seems  wonderfully  strange  to  me  that,  of  all  the 
brilliant  minds  that  have  heretofore  applied  themselves 
to  the  theory  of  astronomy  since  Newton,  not  one  has  so 


30  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

much  as  suggested  the  utilisation  of  the  energy  inherent 
in  our  cosmic  fall  to  account  for  the  gyrations  of  the 
planets  and  satellites,  and  especially  for  their  multitudi- 
nous concordances.  Following  the  lead  of  Newton,  one 
after  another  of  them  has  fallen  blindly  into  line  and  kept 
in  the  same  old  rut.  Newton,  of  course,  is  more  to  be  ex- 
cused than  the  rest ;  for  he  was  not  in  possession  of  cer- 
tain essential  factors,  and,  besides,  he  was  so  far  ahead  of 
his  own  generation  that  not  even  his  modest  postulate 
that  gravitation  extends  as  far  as  the  moon  was  accepted 
by  it  during  his  lifetime,  though  he  survived,  as  was 
stated  before,  the  publication  of  his  Principia  for  as  much 
as  four  decades.  The  oversight,  futhermore,  appears  all 
the  greater  when  we  remember  with  what  assiduity 
mathematicians  have  devoted  themselves  to  the  investiga- 
tion of  the  purely  academical  and  altogether  speculative 
"  fourth  dimension  of  space ",  the  while  remaining  stone 
blind  to  this  genuine  third  dynamical  dimension  of  the 
real  cosmos.  To  them,  just  as  to  Newton,  the  solar  sys- 
tem is,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  a  world  of  two  dimen- 
sions, in  which  the  mutual  attractions  of  the  members 
take  place  in  a  single  plane,  the  plane  of  the  ecliptic ;  and 
they  seem  never  to  have  taken  thought  to  look  up  or  down 
from  that  level  in  search  of  an  extraneous  motive  power 
acting  transversely.  The  universe  of  Newton's  concep- 
tion lacked  the  dynamical  dimension  of  THICKNESS. 

I  trust  that  I  have  now  said  enough  to  convince  the 
unprejudiced  reader  that  there  is  plenty  of  room  for  im- 
provement in  the  theory  of  astronomy  as  now  taught  in 
the  schools,  and  to  prepare  his  mind  to  receive  new  im- 
pressions and  reconsider  past  judgments. 


When,  at  the  age  of  twenty-three,  as  the  story  goes, 
Newton  saw  the  apple  fall,  the  thought  that  occurred  to 
him  was  not  single  but  duplex.  One  phase  of  it  was, 
Does  the  force  of  gravitation  extend  as  far  as  from  the 
earth  to  the  moon?,  and  the  other,  If  it  does  so  extend, 
then  why  does  the  moon  not  fall,  but  preserve  its  uniform 
distance  from  age  to  age!  Doubtless  thousands  of  men  be- 


PLANETARY  MOTIONS  31 

fore  him  had  asked  themselves  the  same  queries,  but 
given  them  up  as  unanswerable  conundrums.  Newton, 
however,  did  not.  It  occurred  to  him  that,  supposing  the 
moon  at  every  mathematical  point  of  her  orbit  to  be  di- 
rected, with  undiminishing  velocity,  tangentially  forward, 
she  might  still  fall  like  the  apple,  but  fall  no  farther  than 
just  from  the  line  of  the  tangent  to  the  rim  of  the  orbit. 
The  first  time  he  made  his  calculation  the  result  was  so 
far  out  that  he  gave  up  his  hypothesis  as  unsound,  and 
charged  his  labors  to  profit  and  loss.  Some  years  later, 
however,  as  luck  would  have  it,  one  of  the  chief  data  of 
fact  upon  which  he  had  relied,  namely,  the  length  of  a 
terrestrial  degree,  was  found  to  be  erroneous,  and  when 
this  corrected  quantity  was  incorporated  in  his  earlier 
calculation  the  result  came  out  satisfactory.  His  chief 
doctrines  are : 

1.  Every  body  continues  in  its  state  of  rest  or  of  uni- 
form motion  in  a  straight  line,  unless  it  be  compelled  by 
impressed  force  to  change  that  state. 

2.  Change  of  motion  is  proportional  to   the  im- 
pressed force,  and  takes  place  in  the  direction  of  the 

straight  line  in  ivhich  the  force  acts. 

3.  To  every  action  there  is  always  an  equal  and  con- 
trary reaction,  or  the  mutual  actions  of  any  two  bodies 
are  always  equal  and  oppositely  directed. 

His  law  of  gravitation  is :  Particles  of  matter  attract 
each  other  directly  as  the  product  of  their  masses  and  in- 
versely as  the  square  of  the  intervening  distance. 

By  way  of  a  supplement  to  these  laws,  I  quote  a  pass- 
age from  Young's  work  (Gen'l  Astr.,  Art.  421) : 

Newton  was  not  satisfied  with  merely  showing  that  the  prin- 
cipal motions  of  the  planets  and  the  moon  could  be  explained  by 
the  law  of  gravitation ;  but  he  went  on  to  investigate  the  converse 
problem,  and  to  determine  what  must  be  the  motions  necessary 
under  that  law.  He  found  that  the  orbit  of  a  body  moving  around 
a  central  mass  is  not  of  necessity  a  circle,  or  even  a  nearly  circu- 
lar ellipse  like  the  planetary  orbits,  but  that  it  may  be  a  conic  sec- 
tion of  any  eccentricity  whatever — a  circle,  ellipse,  parabola,  or 
even  an  hyperbola,  but  it  must  be  a  conic. 


32  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

Now,  in  order  to  set  myself  straight  with  the  reader,  I 
wish  to  assure  him  that  I  am  entirely  in  accord  with  these 
principles,  both  in  letter  and  spirit ;  but  that  I  am  not  at 
all  in  accord  with  Newton  or  his  followers ;  for  the  very 
good  reason  that  they  do  not  practice  their  own  precepts! 
In  investigating  the  laws  of  circulating  bodies,  it  has 
been  customary  from  the  time  of  Newton  to  take,  as  the 
typical  case,  that  of  the  earth  and  the  moon,  and  from 
that  to  generalize  as  to  all.  Let  us  follow  their  example ; 
but  first  let  me  prepare  the  way,  so  that  we  may  have  a 
clearer  conception  of  the  magnitude  and  complexity  of 
the  problem  before  us  than  even  the  astronomers  possess, 
or,  rather,  than  they  are  willing  to  admit  they  possess. 

Most  people  imagine  that  it  is  an  easy  matter  to  draw 
a  perfectly  straight  line.  Such  a  thing  is  not  possible  for 
any  human  being,  and  even  if  it  were  accidentally  accom- 
plished, there  would  be  no  available  standard  by  which 
the  fact  could  be  attested.  It  is  said  that  the  flattest 
piece  of  metal  in  existence,  though  fashioned  with  great 
care,  is  not  flatter  than  the  rotundity  of  the  moon.  The 
curvature  of  the  ocean,  level  as  it  may  seem  to  us  when 
looking  directly  down  upon  it,  slopes  away  from  its  tan- 
gent about  eight  inches  in  the  first  mile.  Compare  this 
now  with  the  curvature  of  the  moon's  orbit,  which,  ac- 
cording to  mathematical  calculation,  swerves  from  its 
tangent  only  1/10  of  an  inch  in  a  mile,  or  .0535  inches  in 
one  second  of  time,  during  which  it  travels  3350  feet. 

The  mean  distance  of  the  moon  from  the  earth  is 
238,840  miles,  according  to  Young.  Astronomers  have 
attempted  to  explain  how  it  got  there,  saying  it  was 
originally  a  part  of  the  earth  and  by  their  mutual  attrac- 
tion has  been  gradually  forced  out  to  its  present  posi- 
tion ;  others,  that  it  came  from  a  distance,  and  when  it 
approached  near  enough,  was  lassoed  by  the  earth's  at- 
traction ;  and  Newton  himself,  that  the  Creator  placed  it 
in  position. 

Now,  considered  merely  as  an  isolated  fact,  it  would 
make  very  little  difference  to  us  whether  the  moon  were  a 
few  miles  further  in  or  further  out ;  but  it  makes  all  the 


PLANETARY  MOTIONS  33 

difference  in  the  world  when  this  distance  is  taken  in  con- 
nection with  the  velocity  of  the  moon  in  her  orbit.  For 
the  feasibility  of  the  Newtonian  hypothesis  presupposes 
the  precisest,  undeviating  correspondence  between  the 
length  of  the  space  fallen  through  by  the  moon  in  one  sec- 
ond of  time  and  the  rate  of  her  tangential  velocity  per 
second,  else  must  she  fall  to,  or  escape  from,  the  earth. 
This  point  may  be  made  clearer  by  a  reference  to  Figure 
1,  copied  from  Sir  Oliver  Lodge's  book,  Pioneers  of 
Science  (p.  171),  with  the  text  accompanying  it: 

Now  consider  circular  motion  in  the  same  way,  say  a  ball 
whirled  round  by  a  string. 

Attending  to  the  body  at  O,  it  is  for  an  instant  moving  to- 
wards A,  and  if  no  force  acted  it  would  get  to  A  in  a  time  which, 
for  brevity,  we  may  call  a  second.  But  a  force,  the  pull  of  the 
string,  is  continually  drawing  it  towards  S,  and  so  it  really  finds 
itself  at  P,  having  described  the  circular  arc  OP,  which  may  be 
considered  to  be  compounded  of,  and  analyzable  into  the  rectilin- 
ear motion  OA  and  the  drop  AP.  At  P  it  is  for  an  instant  mov- 
ing towards  B,  and  the  same  process  therefore  carries  it  to  Q ;  in 
the  third  second  it  gets  to  R;  and  so  on:  always  falling,  so  to 
speak,  from  its  natural  rectilinear  path,  towards  the  centre,  but 
never  getting  any  nearer  to  the  centre. 

The  force  with  which  it  has  thus  to  be  constantly  pulled  in 
towards  the  centre,  or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  the  force  with 
which  it  is  tugging  at  whatever  constraint  it  is  that  holds  it  in,  is 

— ;  where  m  is  the  mass  of  the  particle,  v  its  velocity,  and  r  the 

radius  of  its  circle  of  movement.     This  is  the  formula  first  given 
by  Huyghens  for  centrifugal  force. 

But  suppose  that,  for  any  reason  whatsoever,  as  by 
etheric  or  meteoric  resistance,  the  moon's  momentum 
(which  the  reader  should  never  forget  is,  according  to 
Newtonian  theory,  altogether  unexplained)  should  not 
avail  to  carry  her  clear  to  A,  but  only  to  some  point  by 
ever  so  little  short  of  it,  then  the  moon  would  inevitably 
sink  at  P  within  the  line  of  her  orbit,  that  is,  nearer  to  the 
earth,  where  the  latter 's  attraction  would  become  even 
greater,  absolutely  and  relatively,  and  consequently,  dur- 
ing the  succeeding  second,  overmatch  the  tangential  ve- 
locity still  more ;  a  process  which  could  not  be  stayed  and 


34 


FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 


Fig.  I 


PLANETARY  MOTIONS  35 

would  inevitably  rapidly  precipitate  the  moon  upon  our 
heads.  On  the  other  hand,  suppose  the  tangential  veloc- 
ity to  be  ever  so  slightly  excessive,  so  that  the  moon  in 
its  initial  second  of  time  could  not  at  P  drop  clear  to  the 
orbital  line,  then  would  the  earth's  attraction,  relatively 
and  absolutely,  acceleratingly  decrease  more  and  more, 
and  the  moon  would  consequently  escape  irrecoverably 
into  space. 

So  precarious  an  arrangement  as  this  surely  cannot 
be  the  cosmic  fact !  Newton,  with  his  hypothesis  of  di- 
vine agency,  had  a  great  tactical  advantage  over  the  pro- 
ponents of  spontaneous  motions,  who,  no  doubt,  imagine 
that  their  hypothesis  covers  the  requirements  as  respon- 
sively  as  his.  But  they  are  vastly  mistaken.  Were  New- 
ton here  to  answer  us,  he  could  consistently  retort  that 
the  Creator  is  omnipotent ;  that  it  was  within  His  power 
to  place  the  moon  just  where  He  pleased ;  that  He  could  at 
will  fling  it  even  more  accurately  than  any  mathematician 
could  compute  its  proper  course,  and  that  He  could  im- 
press upon  it  such  velocity  as  He  listed.  Moreover, 
Newton  might  add,  the  Divinity  still  watches  over  His 
universe  and  by  His  mere  fiat  can  readjust  it,  when  and 
where  needed,  just  as  effectually  as  when  He  created  it. 
Do  I  hear  any  astronomer  make  like  claims  of  conscious 
design  on  the  part  of  inanimate  nature  I 

Now,  in  the  solar  system  there  are  eight  major 
planets,  some  twenty-five  satellites,  and  more  than  700  as- 
teroids, all  of  whose  orbits  are  very  much  larger  than  that 
of  the  moon,  and  whose  trajectories  consequently  are  in- 
finitely straighter.  Are  we  to  believe  that  these,  too, 
have  uncaused  motions,  that  these  motions  are  all  miracu- 
lously tangential,  and  that  their  speeds  are  magically  ac- 
commodated by  mere  accident  to  the  strength  of  their 
several  central  forces? 

The  vicious  habit  of  the  Newtonians  of  covering  up 
the  flaws  of  their  theories  was  br'oken  in  upon  in  one 
notable  instance.  This  was  when  Laplace,  deceived  into 
thinking  that  he  had  in  his  Nebular  Hypothesis  the  key  to 
their  answer,  pointed  out  the  amazing  inadequacies  of 


36  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

Newton's  theories  as  they  stood  then,  and,  for  that  mat- 
ter, still  stand.  He  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  all 
the  planets  revolve  in  nearly  the  same  plane,  that  they  re- 
volve all  in  the  same  sense,  that  their  orbits  are  almost 
circular,  that  the  axial  rotations  of  the  planets  show  simi- 
lar uniformities,  that  the  revolutions  of  their  satellites  do 
so  likewise,  and  that  Newton's  theories  throw  no  light 
whatsoever  on  these  significant  concordances.  Continu- 
ing, he  demonstrated,  on  the  theory  of  probabilities,  that 
the  chances  of  all  these  concordances  happening  together 
were  as  one  against  billions  of  billions.  This,  too,  before 
the  discovery  of  Neptune,  of  all  save  four  asteroids,  and 
of  most  of  the  satellites !  To-day  the  Nebular  Hypothe- 
sis is  practically  defunct,  and  nothing  has  arisen  to  fill  its 
place — but  the  difficulties  Laplace  pointed  out  still  are 
there,  and  are  still  clamoring  for  dynamical  explanation. 
Shall  we  not  judge  Newton's  system  by  its  negative  quali- 
ties, by  its  many  sins  of  omission,  as  well  as  by  its  posi- 
tive merits  ? 

If  you  will  tie  one  end  of  an  elastic  string  to  a  small 
solid  ball  and,  keeping  the  other  end  of  the  string  in  your 
hand,  whirl  the  object  round  and  round,  you  will  find  the 
tension  on  the  string  increase  and  the  string  itself 
lengthen  the  faster  the  whirling  is  done.  Nor  can  you 
fail  to  note  that,  with  each  turn,  you  mechanically  execute 
with  your  hand  a  FLINGING  MOTION  ;  stop  that  and  the  ball 
will  instantly  fly  back  at  you  with  force.  You  might,  per- 
haps, suppose  that  the  energy  you  applied  in  this  way  all 
went  toward  overcoming  the  resistance  of  the  atmos- 
phere, but  this  is  not  so,  as  you  may  easily  prove  to  your- 
self by  trying  the  experiment  over  again  with  a  large 
holloiv  ball  of  the  same  weight  as  the  solid  one.  Let  me 
ask  you  in  all  frankness,  do  you  see  any  analogy  between 
this  experiment  and  the  case  of  the  earth  and  the  moon  ? 
The  "string"  of  gravitational  attraction  is  indeed  there, 
but  can  you  point  out  to  me  any  equivalent  action  on  the 
part  of  the  earthy  any  whirling  maneuver,  that  fills  the 
place  of  the  flinging  motion  of  your  hand?  I  know  you 
cannot,  nor  can  the  sophisticated  astronomers,  them- 


MOTIONS  37 


selves,  who  nevertheless  imply  there  is.  Why,  then,  does 
the  moon  keep  her  distance,  and  why  does  she  course 
round  and  round,  instead  of  yielding  to  the  tension  of 
the  connecting  cord  and  flying  back  against  us  f  It  is  a 
continual  shock  to  me  to  find  such  men  as  Flammarion 
and  our  own  Doctor  W.  W.  Campbell,  men  of  the  first 
order  of  merit,  not  to  mention  an  endless  procession  of 
lesser  experts,  talk  with  straight  faces  about  "the  sun 
whirling  the  earth  around  ",  and  a  "star  whirling  its 
companion  around",  —  with  never  an  attempt  then,  or  at 
any  other  time,  in  the  class-room,  laboratory,  or  printed 
word,  to  justify  the  expression,  or  to  apologize  for  the 
palpable  misrepresentation  ! 

Have  you,  my  reader,  any  adequate  idea  of  the  elastic 
strength  of  the  earth's  attraction  upon  the  moon?  Do 
you  realize  that,  unlike  a  rubber  band,  gravitational  at- 
traction never  rots  or  wears  out,  never  relaxes,  and, 
moreover,  even  increases  its  tension  the  closer  the  bodies 
are  brought  together?  It  is  not  like  a  strand  of  twine, 
or  a  ship's  cable,  or  a  dog's  tether,  that  remains  in  a  state 
of  laxity  until  called  into  play  only  when  stretched  to  full 
length.  No  !  it  is  unrelentingly  pulling  at  the  moon  with 
all  its  might,  striving  to  bring  her  down. 

Now,  it  is  not  a  difficult  matter  to  determine  by  cal- 
culation the  approximate  strength  of  this  attraction,  once 
we  know  the  respective  masses  of  the  two  bodies  and  the 
intervening  distance,  all  of  which  we  do.  Expressed  one 
way,  this  attraction  is  equivalent  to  the  full  tensile 
strength  of  a  solid  steel  cable  400  miles  in  diameter  (say 
from  Pittsburgh  to  New  York)  capable  of  sustaining  a 
load  of  40  tons  to  the  square  inch.  Expressed  in  terms  of 
power  (supposing  a  horse  able  to  sustain  a  ton  against 
gravity),  it  is  equal  to  that  of  240  million,  million  horses. 
Allowing  100  square  feet  for  each  horse,  it  would  require 
to  stable  them  a  four-story  building  covering  the  entire 
surface  of  the  earth,  not  excepting  the  space  taken  up  by 
the  oceans!  Visualize  all  this  to  your  mind's  eye,  and 
imagine  the  horses,  or  a  steam  engine  equal  to  them  in 
power,  located  at  the  center  of  the  earth  and  pulling  upon 


38  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

such  a  cable,  and  ask  yourself  whether  it  seems  to  you 
reasonable  that  the  unsupported  moon,  without  cmy  influx 
of  energy  whatsoever  from  without,  can,  unenfeebled, 
hold  her  own  against  it  forever,  as  astronomers  declare 
she  can?  To  the  casual  observer,  the  moon  looks  like  a 
silver  wafer  pasted  upon  the  sky ;  in  reality  it  is  a  globe 
of  earthy  matter  2160  miles  in  diameter  (as  far  as  from 
New  York  to  Santa  Fe)  with  a  mass  nearly  one-eightieth 
that  of  the  earth  itself.  So  far  as  we  know  or  have  rea- 
son to  believe,  it  has  remained  exactly  at  its  present  mean 
height  for  at  least  3000  years,  and  possibly  has  been 
there  for  as  many  hundreds  of  millions — all  the  time 
pulling  against  a  strain  of  240  trillions  of  untiring 
horses !  The  moon  has  no  pillar  to  support  it,  no  pulley 
to  suspend  it,  no  atmosphere  to  buoy  it,  no  breeze  to  waft 
it,  no  screw  to  propel  it,  no  engine  to  haul  it, — yet  still  it 
stays  up.  Why?  Whence  comes  the  centrifugal  force 
to  keep  driving  it  away  from  the  earth  with  identically 
the  same  energy  that  the  latter  perpetually  prompts  it  to 
fall  ?  Where  is  the  equivalent  of  that  flinging  motion  of 
your  hand  that  supplied  the  centrifugal  force  to  the  little 
metal  ball  of  our  experiment?  To  this  query  astron- 
omers with  one  accord  reply:  "The  moon's  innate 
momentum  constitutes  this  sustaining  power, "  and  then 
they  immediately  fall  mute.  Let  us  see  what  merit  lies 
in  this  answer : 

To  go  back  to  our  elastic  string  and  metal  ball ;  sup- 
pose you  hold  tight  one  end  of  the  cord,  while  I  pull  the 
ball  away  from  you  until  we  both  sense  the  tension  on  the 
string.  Here  your  hand,  say,  represents  the  earth,  the 
tensed  string  the  gravitational  attraction,  and  the  ball 
the  moon.  Suppose,  now,  that  I  should  let  go  the  ball, 
what  will  become  of  it?  Will  it  fly  toward  your  hand,  or 
will  it,  of  itself,  take  on  a  tangential  movement  and  re- 
volve around  you  in  a  circle?  Of  course  it  will  fly  to 
your  hand!  To  do  otherwise,  we  all  should  agree,  were 
unnatural.  When  astronomers,  therefore,  pretend  that 
the  moon  has  a  spontaneous  tangential  motion,  they 
know  as  well  as  we  that  such  a  motion  is  physically  impos- 
sible under  the  present  order  of  nature,  and  that  they 


PLANETARY  MOTIONS  39 

must  presuppose  a  pre-existent  order,  or  a  realm  of  pres- 
ent nature  far  removed  from  us,  whence  to  derive  such  a 
miracle.  Admit,  for  the  sake  of  further  argument,  that 
there  once  existed  a  time  when  miracles  were  the  rule  and 
natural  order  the  exception,  or  that  such  a  condition  exists 
to-day  in  the  sky  above  us ;  then  what  possible  use  is  it  for 
us  to  try  to  solve  the  dynamical  problems  of  the  celestial 
universe  at  all,  since  we  cannot  sanely  hope  to  differ- 
entiate what  is  miracle  from  wrhat  is  natural,  or  consist- 
ently fit  one  to  the  other!  Once  assert  that  mechanical 
effects,  such  as  the  rectilinear  motions  of  stars  and 
planets  undoubtedly  are,  exist  independently  of  physical 
causation,  and  you  commit  four  grave  follies;  (1)  You 
deprive  physical  science  of  the  only  ground  she  has  to 
stand  upon,  namely,  the  law  of  physical  cause  and  effect, 
the  sole  key  to  the  interpretation  of  nature;  (2)  You 
throw  wide  the  door  to  the  perpetration  of  all  sorts  of 
other  pious  frauds ;  for  if  Nature  departs  from  her  laws 
in  one  case,  why  may  she  not  do  so  in  any  other,  accord- 
ing to  the  exigency  of  theory  or  the  whim  of  any  of  her 
would-be  interpreters?  (3)  You  commit  yourself  ir- 
revocably to  the  hopeless  task  of  trying  to  correlate  facts 
with  miracles,  instead  of  facts  with  cognate  facts;  and 
(4)  You  require  of  the  present  order  of  Nature  not  only 
to  regulate  itself,  but  likewise  to  overcome  and  discipline 
the  erratic  elements  left  over  or  inherited  from  a  pre- 
vious state  of  chaos. 

Again,  continuing  our  experiment;  suppose  that  in- 
stead of  letting  the  ball  go,  I  should  fire  it  from  a  gun ; 
could  I  do  so,  practically  or  theoretically,  with  such  ve- 
locity as  would  carry  it  around  your  hand,  in  a  near  circle, 
back  to  the  identical  starting  point?  Or,  suppose  that 
having  started  the  ball  whirling  in  the  ordinary  way  until 
you  had  it  going  with  a  uniform  motion ;  could  you,  by  a 
sudden  and  doubly  violent  swing,  cause  the  ball  to  make 
two  uniform  turns  in  succession  instead  of  but  the  one? 
Astronomers  virtually  say  both  these  things  are  possible 
in  the  case  of  the  moon,  because  the  ether  of  space  is  non- 
resisting,  whereas  the  air  offers  considerable  resistance. 
That  they  are  wrong,  the  experimenter  may  see  for  him- 


40  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

self.  For  one  thing,  he  knows  that  only  a  minor  part  of 
the  energy  he  puts  into  the  flinging  motion  goes  toward 
overcoming  the  air  resistance ;  (2)  that  the  momentum  of 
the  ball  is  only  the  energy  he  himself  imparts,  and  that 
it  dies  out  almost  instantly  the  moment  his  flinging 
maneuver  ceases;  and  (3)  that  the  great  bulk  of  the 
energy  his  hand  supplies  is  absorbed  in  stretching  the 
string,  or  keeping  it  taut ;  that  is  to  say,  his  muscle  is  the 
centrifugal  force.  You  cannot  hitch  in  double  harness  a 
bullet  fired  with  a  charge  of  gunpowder  equivalent  to  10 
horse-power  hours  of  energy  along  with  the  horse  itself, 
and  expect  them  to  team  a  load  for  ten  hours.  No  more 
can  you  match  a  projectile  moon  with  the  steady  pull  of 
gravity. 

Now,  it  is  not  at  all  difficult  to  determine  the  approxi- 
mate horse-power  hours  of  energy  resident  in  the  moon's 
"momentum".  Assuming  that  the  moon  is  moving  at 
the  exact  velocity  of  3350  feet  a  second  and  that  it  is  fall- 
ing at  the  behest  of  the  earth 's  attraction  at  the  precise 
rate  of  one-nineteenth  of  an  inch  in  the  same  space  of 
time,  we  need  only  divide  the  fraction  into  the  larger 
number  and  multiply  the  quotient  by  240  trillions  to  get 
the  answer  desired.  Eemember,  however,  and  again  I 
say  remember,  that,  according  to  Newton's  theory,  the 
moon  has  no  way  to  recuperate  lost  energy ;  hence,  when 
the  energy  of  her  momentum  is  used  up  in  wrestling 
against  the  earth's  attraction,  that  momentum  is  done 
for,  for  good.  Now,  by  the  conditions  of  our  problem, 
the  moon's  momental  (inertial)  energy  is  constantly 
pitted  against  the  earth's  attraction,  which  is  always 
fresh,  can  never  be  used  up,  and  is  uniformly  self -renew- 
ing. Dividing,  therefore,  as  we  did  above,  3350  feet,  or 
its  equivalent  in  inches,  40200,  by  1-19  we  obtain  the  quan- 
tity 763,800,  which  is  the  number  of  seconds  that  it  should 
take  the  centripetal  attraction  to  wear  out  the  moon's 
momental  energy  completely.  Raised  to  higher  terms, 
this  period  amounts  to  8.8  days,  wrhich  is  reasonably  close 
to  the  time  generally  estimated  that  it  would  take  the 
moon  to  fall  to  the  earth  if  dropped  from  a  state  of  ab- 
solute rest.  This  result  agrees  well  with  the  rule  that 


PLANETARY  MOTIONS 41 

"projectiles  fired  horizontally  reach  the  earth  simultane- 
ously with  other  objects  like  them  dropped  from  the  same 
height",  a  rule  that  only  Newtonians  disregard. 

Let  us  reduce  the  argument  to  mathematical  form: 
According  both  to  theory  and  observation,  the  moon 
at  perigee  has  always  exactly  the  same  momentum.  Con- 
sidering, then,  two  successive  perigees,  let  M  represent 
the  Moon's  momentum  at  the  time  of  the  first  perigee, 
and  M'  that  which  she  has  at  the  time  of  the  second,  and 
we  have, 

M=M' 

Again,  by  general  consent  the  centripetal  and  centrifugal 
forces  are  equal,  which  fact  we  may  express,  for  one  lun- 
ation, thus : 

C= C' 

But  astronomers  inform  us  that  the  momentum,  M,  of 
the  moon  supplies  the  centrifugal  force,  consequently,  on 
this  theory,  the  momentum  of  the  moon  at  the  second 
perigee  must  be  M-C' ;  substituting  which  in  place  of  M' 
in  the  first  equation,  we  get, 

M=M— C' 

whence,  C'=Q 

and,  since  C=C'  C=Q 

Reductio  ad  absurdum:  There  are  no  central  forces: 
gravitation  is  a  myth!  (V.  p.  4.) 

You  may  be  curious  to  learn  how  scientists  try  to 
overcome  this  seeming  impasse.  Very  characteristically ! 
Herbert  Spencer,  innocently  aided  by  Huxley,  about  the 
year  1860,  invented  the  euphonious  phrase,  "persistence 
of  force."  This  expression,  primarily  intended  for  use 
in  physics  as  an  improvement  on  the  phrase,  "  conser- 
vation of  energy",  quickly  commended  itself  to  the  astro- 
nomical profession  as  an  excellent  substitute  for  Newton's 
word  "inertia."  This  word  inertia,  in  fact,  has  fallen 
of  late  so  much  into  disfavor  that  seldom  does  the  eye 
meet  it  in  modern  books  on  astronomy.  Persistence  = 
inertia!  First,  we  are  expected  to  concede  the  exist- 
ence of  uncaused  motionst  and  now  we  are  being  unctu- 


42  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

ously  cajoled  into  admitting  that  persistence  and  inertia 
are  synonyms!  Imagine  the  cultured  Bostonian  father 
predicting  great  things  for  the  infantile  Waldo  because 
of  his  l '  superabundance  of  inertia ! ' ' 

Again,  does  the  moon  really  fall  toward  the  earth  as 
astronomers  allege  ?  It  is  admitted,  on  all  hands,  that  its 
mean  distance  is  quite,  or  at  least  very  nearly,  the  same 
from  month  to  month  and  from  century  to  century.  If  it 
be  correct  to  say  that  the  moon  is  falling  simply  because 
it  is  continually  diverging  from  the  tangent  of  its  orbit, 
it  is  no  less  correct  to  assert  that  the  dome  on  the  Capitol 
at  Washington  is  falling,  because  it,  too,  is  continually  di- 
verging from  the  tangent  of  the  circle  in  which  it  revolves 
by  reason  of  the  earth's  diurnal  rotation;  specifically, 
three  inches  per  second.  According  to  the  doctrine  of 
the  conservation  of  energy,  loss  of  "  position "  involves 
transformation  of  potential  energy  into  kinetic,  and  for 
every  unit  of  the  former  that  disappears  one  of  the  latter 
must  appear.  If  such  be  not  the  case  in  every  instance, 
the  law  is  no  law  at  all,  and  must  be  relegated  to  the  limbo 
of  exploded  errors.  In  one  ordinary  month  there  are 
about  2,551,400  seconds,  or  708.7,  hours,  or  29.5306  days. 
If  in  one  second  of  time,  as  alleged,  the  moon  falls  .0535 
ins.,  it  should  develop  kinetic  energy  equal  to  240  million, 
million  horse-power  as  long  as  the  falling  process  con- 
tinues, which,  humanly  speaking,  means  forever.  What 
becomes  of  this  energy,  I  ask?  If  nothing  becomes  of  it 
and  it  passes  out  of  existence  in  the  moment  of  its 
creation,  then  must  we  not  admit  that  there  exists  a 
creative  energy  in  nature  and  also  a  way  whereby  energy 
can  perish,  neither  of  which  propositions  scientists  now 
concede  ?  If  no  potential  energy,  on  the  other  hand,  dis- 
appears and  no  kinetic  energy  appears,  then  there  is  no 
loss  of  "  position "  at  all,  the  moon  is  not  falling,  and  the 
whole  Newtonian  argument  breaks  down.  Lastly,  if  the 
moon  is  not  falling  earthward,  it  is  not  construable  as  a 
body  falling  in  vacuo,  hence  she  must  be  obeying  the  law 
of  lowest  center  of  gravity  with  respect  to  the  earth,  and 
this  should  suffice  as  the  reason  for  her  "  constantly  turn- 
ing the  same  face  toward  us".  For  the  same  reason,  the 


PLANETARY  MOTIONS  43 

earth  should  not  be  construed  as  a  falling  body  with 
reference  to  the  moon ;  hence  the  Newtonian  tidal  theory 
is  erroneous ! 

The  figure  on  page  34,  to  which  attention  has  once 
before  been  directed,  is  that  usually  employed  by  writers 
and  teachers  to  illustrate  Newton's  doctrine.  The  " ex- 
planation" runs  thus: 

Suppose  that  the  moon  originally  started  from  the 
point  0  with  a  velocity  capable  of  carrying  her  along  the 
tangent  to  the  point  A.  Instead  of  arriving  at  A,  how- 
ever, on  account  of  the  earth's  attraction  she  arrives  at  P, 
having  followed  the  arc  in  place  of  the  tangent,  and  so 
on."  That  phrase,  " and  so  on",  is  part  of  the  explan- 
ation, and  is  as  far  as  it  ever  goes,  as  far  as  the  theorists 
dare  go.  They  stop  precisely  at  the  point  where  the 
trouble  begins!  Every  tyro  in  mathematics  knows  that 
an  arc  is  shorter  than  its  tangent,  that  is,  that  OP  is 
shorter  than  OA;  hence,  logically,  the  moon's  velocity  at 
P  cam-not  possibly  be  as  great  as  it  was  at  0,  and  by  the 
same  token  she  would  not  have  sufficient  momentum  left 
to  carry  her  in  the  succeeding  second  as  far,  either  along 
the  tangent  or  along  the  arc,  as  it  did  in  the  first.  Un- 
less, therefore,  nature  has  some  secret  way  of  restoring 
to  the  moon  this  lost  energy  of  motion  so  that  her  velocity 
is  constantly  whipt  up  and  kept  up,  she  must  sink  ever 
lower  and  lower,  as  any  ordinary  projectile  would,  and 
soon  strike  the  earth.  When,  therefore,  astronomers  as- 
sert that  the  moon's  "momentum"  sustains  her  in  her  or- 
bit, that  her  momentum  is  thereby  nevertheless  not  im- 
paired and  that  there  is  no  way  of  renewing  that  momen- 
tum, they  assert  in  effect  that  the  whole  minus  many  times 
its  parts  is  still  equal  to  the  whole — that  children  can  eat 
their  pudding  and  have  it  too.  So,  indeed,  they,  can — pro- 
vided, however,  that  new  pudding  be  baked  as  fast  as  the 
supply  on  hand  disappears ;  which  js  not  shown  to  be  the 
case  here. 

By  way  of  an  attempt  to  parry  this  difficulty,  New- 
tonians have  succeeded  in  persuading  themselves  that 
mathematical  exactness  between  the  velocity  of  the  tan- 
gential motion  and  the  force  of  gravity  is  not  vital  to  the 


44  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

practicability  of  their  conception.  They  tell  us,  with 
every  show  of  confidence  in  their  words  and  manner,  that 
if  the  velocity  bears  to  gravity  a  certain  ratio,  the  result- 
ing orbit  will  be  a  circle ;  that  if  this  velocity  be  exceeded, 
the  orbit  will  be  a  parabola,  or  hyperbola ;  and  that  if  the 
velocity  be  deficient,  the  result  will  be  an  ellipse,  broad  or 
narrow,  according  to  the  degree  of  such  deficiency;  but 
that  in  no  event  can  the  circulating  body  fall  in.  To  see 
the  fallacy  of  this  representation,  you  need  only  take  an 
arc  of  any  conic  section  you  may  choose,  draw  its  tangent 
and  the  radii  vectores,  and  then  go  through  the  same 
demonstration  as  given  above.  It  seems  to  me  too  plain 
for  denial,  that  if  the  velocity  be  too  slow,  gravity,  in  the 
first  second,  must  inevitably  pull  the  body  within  the  line 
of  the  conic  curve,  and  that,  the  arcs  of  all  conies  being 
shorter  than  their  tangents,  the  velocity  in  the  second  sec- 
ond will  be  not  only  slower  absolutely,  but,  relatively  to 
the  force  of  gravity,  very  much  slower.  To  such  a  pro- 
cess there  could  be  but  one  sequence — the  body  would 
fall  in  short  order. 

Newtonians  are  by  no  means  oblivious  to  the  in- 
security of  the  ground  they  here  occupy,  so  they  have 
added,  by  way  of  an  alternative  or  makeweight,  the  fic- 
tion that  celestial  motions  are  "persistent".  This  idea 
they  have  borrowed  from  the  so-called  doctrine  of  con- 
servation of  energy.  They  have  come  to  realize  that 
Newton  was  too  modest  in  asking  merely  for  the  gift  of 
rectilinear  motions  by  way  of  capital  on  which  to  run  his 
cosmic  system,  and  so  they  have  added,  for  the  sake  of 
expediency,  this  new  notion.  In  other  words,  they  have 
gratuitously  substituted  in  the  Newtonian  vocabulary  the 
word  persistent  for  inertia,  its  antonym.  Now,  our  ter- 
restrial experience  offers  us  not  a  single  example  of 
motion  not  plainly  traceable  to  a  definite  physical  cause ; 
so,  to  mark  the  difference,  and  as  a  sort  of  honorary  dis- 
tinction, they  call  the  one  sort  " celestial"  mechanics  and 
the  other,  " terrestrial",  exactly  traversing,  as  it  were, 
Drummond's  Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World,  by 
showing  that  natural  law  does  not  even  rise  to  the  height 
of  the  physical  heavens ! 


PLANETARY  MOTIONS  45 

A  little  sober  reflection  ought  to  convince  anyone  that 
attempts  to  solve  the  problems  of  the  cosmos  by  adopting 
in  the  outset  a  group  of  "laws"  transcending,  and  even 
contradicting,  human  experience,  and,  with  these  as  a 
base,  trying  to  harmonize  celestial  phenomena  in  other 
respects  interpreted  by  mundane  standards — must  prove 
abortive.  Natural  law  is  consistent  with  itself  from  the 
greatest  to  the  least;  pervert  one  part  of  it  and  you  in- 
volve yourself  in  an  endless  maze  of  error.  Were  the 
matter  less  serious,  it  would  be  amusing  to  note  the  airs 
assumed  by  astronomers  at  having  "discovered"  this 
supposed  departure  of  celestial  from  terrestrial  me- 
chanics— this  inconsistency  of  Dame  Nature,  the  chief  of- 
fender of  her  sex.  Thus,  the  late  Miss  Mary  Agnes 
Clerke,  the  celebrated  English  astronomer  (Modern 
Cosmogonies,  p.  10)  says  naively:  "Kepler's  ignorance 
of  the  laws  of  motion  precluded  him  from  the  conception 
of  velocities  persistent  in  themselves,  and  merely  de- 
flected from  straight  lines  into  curved  paths  by  a  constant 
central  pull. ' '  Let  us,  if  you  please,  look  into  this  ' '  con- 
ception of  velocities  persistent  in  themselves"  before  we 
decide  whether  to  prefer  to  be  ignorant  with  Kepler  or 
wise  with  Miss  Clerke  and  the  rest  of  Newtonians. 

As  you,  of  course,  know,  the  moon  travels  around  our 
earth,  not  in  a  perfect  circle,  but  in  an  ellipse ;  of  which 
latter  the  earth  occupies  the  focus.  The  long  axis  of  this 
ellipse  is  called  the  major-  and  the  shorter  the  minor  axis. 
The  difference  in  the  length  of  the  semi-major  axis  and 
the  semi-minor  is  1550,  but  the  difference  between  the 
longest  distance  of  the  moon  and  its  mean  distance  is, 
in  round  numbers,  14,000  miles,  while  the  shortest  dis- 
tance, or  when  the  moon  is  at  perigee,  is  by  even  a  larger 
amount  smaller ;  the  exact  distances,  according  to  Neison, 
being  252,972,  238,840,  and  221,614  miles  respectively. 
Now,  there  is  one  way,  and  but  one,  whereby  you  can  di- 
vide this  orbit  into  exactly  similar  halves  (at  the  same 
time  severing  the  earth  in  half)  and  that  is,  by  slitting  it 
along  the  line  of  the  major  axis.  Along  one  of  these 
semi-orbits,  the  moon,  proceeding  from  her  perigee  to 
her  apogee,  constantly  decreases  her  velocity ;  while  along 


46  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

the  other,  on  her  return  journey,  she  correspondingly  in- 
creases it.  Now,  the  doctrine  of  "persistent  velocities" 
holds  that,  in  coming  inward,  the  moon  is  endowed  with 
the  occult  property  of  gaining,  not  merely  in  velocity, 
but  in  strength  of  persistency,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing, 
centrifugal  force;  whereas,  in  going  outward,  the  con- 
trary is  alleged  to  be  the  case.  So  you  see  that,  not  even 
satisfied  with  demanding  both  uncaused  rectilinear 
motions  and  gratuitously  persistent  velocities,  we  are 
asked  to  concede,  further,  that  this  persistency  is  vari- 
able; nor  that,  merely,  but  intelligently  so!  Moreover, 
every  planet,  every  satellite,  every  asteroid,  every  comet, 
every  circulating  body  throughout  the  universe  of  matter, 
we  are  asked  to  believe,  is  blessed  with  a  similar  occult 
power,  each  with  a  special  rectilinear  velocity,  and  a 
unique  rate  of  increase  and  diminution,  to  suit  the  mathe- 
matical elements  of  its  individual  orbit — and  the  exi- 
gencies of  Newtonian  theory. 

Thus,  after  long  and  arduous  beating  about  the  bush 
the  astronomers  have  come  back  to  the  same  point  from 
which  they  started,  flushed  with  pride  at  being  able  to 
tell  us  the  illuminating  news  that  they  have  discovered : 
that  the  planets  got  started  of  themselves,  that  they 
maintain  and  vary  their  speed  by  virtue  of  some  secret 
unfathomable  power,  and  that,  in  short,  the  whole  busi- 
ness is  quite  as  inexplicable  as  we  at  first  found  it  to  be ! 
How  sad  to  think  that  Kepler  had  to  die  in  his  "ignor- 
ance ' ' ! 

Again,  Newton  concentrated  his  whole  attention  on 
the  fact  that  the  moon  falls  from  her  tangent  a  trifle  of 
1-19  inch  per  second,  equivalent  in  a  lunar  month  of  2,551, 
400  seconds  to  scarcely  two  miles ;  but  he  and  his  fol- 
lowers pass  over,  with  but  scant  attention,  the  vastly 
greater  variation  in  her  altitude  above  the  earth  as  be- 
tween perigee  and  apogee,  when,  in  only  one-half  the 
elapsed  time,  she  rises  the  enormous  amount  of  some  31, 
000  miles,  or  130  feet  per  second  as  against  the  1-19  inch 
that  she  falls  by  gravity ! — and  this  in  the  very  teeth  of 
gravity!  Later,  on  the  return  journey,  she  loses  this 
again,  falling,  now,  30,000  times  as  fast  as  she  falls  by 


PLANETARY  MOTIONS 47 

gravity,  but  by  poor  marksmanship,  or  something  else 
less  understandable,  she  misses  the  earth  that  is  calling 
her,  falls  around  it,  and  again  away.  As  to  the  two  miles 
she  falls  by  gravity,  they  furthermore  tell  us,  she  doesn't 
fall  this  distance  after  all,  because  she  comes  no  nearer ! 

It  is  one  of  the  ludicrous  fictions  of  astronomers  that 
the  moon,  having  once  gotten  started  in  her  tangent,  is 
continually  falling  beyond  the  limits  of  the  earth  and 
therefore  can  never  actually  alight,  but  must  continue  cir- 
culating round  and  round  the  planet  indefinitely.  At 
perigee,  for  instance,  the  moon's  velocity,  they  say,  is 
such  that  it  shoots  the  body  so  far  beyond  the  earth,  and 
with  such  force,  as  to  fire  her  clear  out  to  apogee,  where 
gravity  finally  regains  the  upper  hand  and  compels  her 
return.  On  this  return  journey,  they  proceed,  the  moon 
is  so  strongly  attracted  toward  the  center  of  gravity  of 
the  earth  as  to  cause  her  to  acquire  thereby  so  much 
momental  velocity  as  to  enable  her  to  foil  the  attraction 
to  which  she  owes  that  velocity,  and  at  perigee  to  swing 
clear  of  the  snare !  To  see  how  well  the  principle  works 
out  in  terrestrial  practice,  try  it  out  with  a  ball  attached 
to  a  rubber  string  and  see  whether  the  contraction  of  the 
elastic  will  let  the  ball  play  any  such  tricks — without  the 
flinging  motion  of  your  hand  to  aid.  The  notion  that  the 
moon  can  fall  beyond  the  earth  is  in  itself  very  silly,  for, 
wherever  it  may  be  in  its  orbit,  it  is  always  over  the  very 
center  of  the  earth  and  is  being  incessantly  drawn  toward 
that  point. 

To  "elucidate"  this  matter  in  a  way  "intelligible  to 
non-mathematical  minds, ' '  Dr.  Newcomb,  in  his  Popular 
Astronomy  (p.  77)  says: 

To  the  mathematician  the  passage  from  the  gravitation  of  an 
apple  to  that  of  the  moon  is  quite  simple ;  but  the  non-mathemat- 
ical reader  may  not,  at  first  sight,  see  how  the  moon  can  be  con- 
stantly falling  towards  the  earth  without  ever  becoming  any 
nearer.  The  following  illustration  will  make  the  matter  clear: 
Any  one  can  understand  the  law  of  falling  bodies,  by  which  a 
body  falls  sixteen  feet  the  first  second,  three  times  that  distance 
the  next,  five  times  the  third,  and  so  on.  If,  in  place  of  falling, 
the  body  be  projected  horizontally,  like  a  cannon-ball,  for  ex- 
ample, it  will  fall  sixteen  feet  out  of  the  straight  line  in  which  it 


48  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

is  projected  during  the  first  second,  three  times  that  distance  the 
next,  and  so  on,  the  same  as  if  dropped  from  a  state  of  rest.  In 
Figure  2,  annexed,  let  A  B  represent  a  portion  of  the  curved  sur- 
face of  the  earth,  and  A  D  a  straight  line  horizontal  at  A,  or  the 
line  along  which  an  observer  at  A  would  sight  if  he  set  a  small 
telescope  in  a  horizontal  position.  Then,  owing  to  the  curvature 
of  the  earth,  the  surface  will  fall  away  from  this  line  of  sight  at 
the  rate  of  about  eight  inches  in  the  first  mile,  twenty-four  inches 
more  in  the  second  mile,  and  so  on.  In  five  miles  the  fall  will 
amount  to  sixteen  feet.  In  ten  miles,  in  addition  to  this  sixteen 
feet,  three  times  that  amount  will  be  added,  and  so  on,  the  law  be- 
ing the  same  with  that  of  a  falling  body.  Now,  let  A  C  be  a  high 
steep  mountain,  from  the  summit  of  which  a  cannon-ball  is  fired 
in  the  horizontal  direction  C  E.  The  greater  the  velocity  with 
which  the  shot  is  fired,  the  farther  it  will  go  before  it  reaches  the 
ground.  Suppose,  at  length,  that  we  should  fire  it  with  a  velocity 
of  five  miles  a  second,  and  that  it  should  meet  with  no  resistance 
from  the  air.  Suppose  e  to  be  the  point  on  the  line  five  miles 
from  C.  Since  it  would  reach  this  point  in  one  second,  it  fol- 
lows, from  the  law  of  falling  bodies  just  cited,  that  it  will  have 
dropped  sixteen  feet  below  e.  But  we  have  just  seen  that  the 
earth  itself  curves  away  sixteen  feet  at  this  distance.  Hence, 
the  shot  is  no  nearer  the  earth  than  when  it  was  fired.  During 
the  next  second,  while  the  ball  would  go  to  E,  it  would  fall  forty- 
eight  feet  more,  or  sixty- four  feet  in  all.  But  here,  again,  the 
earth  has  still  been  rounding  off,  so  the  distance  D  B  is  sixty- four 
feet.  Hence,  the  ball  is  still  no  nearer  the  earth  than  when  it  was 
fired,  although  it  has  been  dropping  away  from  the  line  in  which 
it  was  fired  exactly  like  a  falling  body.  Moreover,  meeting  with 
no  resistance,  it  is  still  going  on  with  undiminished  velocity ;  and, 
just  as  it  has  been  falling  for  two  seconds  without  getting  any 
nearer  the  earth,  so  it  can  get  no  nearer  in  the  third  second,  nor 
in  the  fourth,  nor  in  any  subsequent  second;  but  the  earth  will 
constantly  curve  away  as  fast  as  the  ball  can  drop.  Thus  the 
latter  will  pass  clear  round  the  earth,  and  come  back  to  the  first 
point  C,  from  which  it  started,  in  the  direction  of  the  arrow,  with- 
out any  loss  of  velocity.  The  time  of  revolution  will  be  about  an 
hour  and  twenty- four  minutes,  and  the  ball  will  thus  keep  on  re- 
volving round  the  earth  in  this  space  of  time.  In  other  words, 
the  ball  will  be  a  satellite  of  the  earth,  just  like  the  moon,  only 
much  nearer,  and  revolving  much  faster. 

Our  next  step  is  to  extend  gravitation  to  other  bodies  than 
the  earth.  The  planets  move  around  the  sun  as  the  moon  does 
around  the  earth,  and  must,  therefore,  be  acted  on  by  a  force  di- 
rected towards  the  sun.  This  force  can  be  no  other  than  the 
gravitation  of  the  sun  itself.  A  very  simple  calculation  from 
Kepler's  third  law  shows  that  the  force  with  which  each  planet 


PLANETARY  MOTIONS 


49 


/I/ 

/! 


LCL ttf. 


Fig.  2 


\ 

U 


50  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

thus  gravitates  towards  the  sun  is  inversely  as  the  square  of  the 
mean  distance  of  the  planet. 

Only  one  more  step  is  necessary.  What  sort  of  an  orbit  will 
a  planet  describe  if  acted  on  by  a  force  directed  towards  the  sun, 
and  inversely  as  the  square  of  the  distance?  A  very  simple 
demonstration  will  show  that,  no  matter  what  the  law  of  force,  if 
it  be  constantly  directed  towards  the  sun,  the  radius- vector  of  the 
planet  will  sweep  over  equal  areas  in  equal  times.  And,  con- 
versely, it  cannot  sweep  over  equal  areas  in  equal  times  if  the 
force  acts  in  any  other  direction  than  that  of  the  sun.  Hence  it 
follows,  from  Kepler's  second  law,  that  the  force  is  directed  to- 
wards the  sun  itself. 

In  transcribing  the  geometrical  figure  given  by  New- 
comb,  I  have  taken  the  liberty  of  adding  the  dotted  lines 
and  using  final  letters  of  the  alphabet  to  designate  new 
points  of  reference.  Let  Z,  then,  represent  the  center  of 
the  earth,  Ze  a  radius  vector  of  the  moon  (the  projectile 
body),  and  let  the  line  exv  be  drawn  parallel  with  CAZ. 

My  first  objection  to  this  attempted  explanation  is 
that  Newcomb  errs  in  disingenuously  representing  that 
the  satellite  falls  along  a  line  paralleling  CAZ,  for  it 
does  nothing  of  the  sort.  Instead,  it  falls  continually  to- 
ward Z,  the  focus  of  attraction,  according  to  Newton's 
second  law  of  motion,  on  which  is  based  the  so-called  law 
of  areas,  and  which  reads, ' '  change  of  motion  is  propor- 
tional to  the  impressed  force,  and  takes  place  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  straight  line  in  which  the  force  acts."  As 
Newcomb  misrepresents  it,  the  point  of  attraction  is 
pictured  as  though  traveling  along  ZQ  with  exactly  the 
same  velocity  as  the  projectile  was  originally  impelled 
along  CE,  and  as  if  the  earth  would  be  at  the  end  of  the 
quadrant  to  greet  the  moon  when  she  should  arrive  at  that 
point.  Does  he  suppose  the  earth  to  have  an  astral  body 
which  it  can  thus  project  out  of  its  physical  corpus,  and  so 
prompt  other  cosmic  bodies  toward  places  where  itself  is 
not? 

Plainly,  the  moon  instead  of  dropping  to  x,  therefore, 
falls  to  y,  and  we  have  a  repetition  of  the  condition  ex- 
hibited in  Fig.  1,  in  which  it  was  shown  that  the  velocity 
of  the  moon,  by  the  combination  of  the  projectile  force 
with  the  centripetal  attraction,  is  slowed  proportionately 


PLANETARY  MOTIONS  51 

to  that  of  an  arc  as  compared  with  its  tangent.  That  the 
two  forces  mentioned  do  not  act  cumulatively,  but  in 
opposition  to  each  other,  resulting  in  a  logical  diminution 
of  speed,  clearly  appears  from  the  direction  of  the  line 
psZt,  which  depicts  the  mean  direction  of  the  action  of  the 
central  force,  and  which  visibly  intersects  the  tangent  at 
an  acute  angle.  This  loss  of  velocity,  be  it  noted,  is  not  in 
any  sense  attributable  to  the  presence  of  a  resisting 
medium,  but  is  the  inevitable  and  logical  outcome  of  the 
principle  of  central  attraction,  and  calls  for  the  assign- 
ment of  a  substantial  counteracting  centrifugal  force. 

Suppose,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  the  moon 
really  did  fall  acceleratively  as  Newcomb  describes,  then 
at  the  end  of  the  first  quadrant  she  will  have  gained  a 
velocity  equal  to  3350  feet  per  second  in  addition  to  the 
"persistent"  momentum  with  which  she  started  out. 
Would  not  this  constitute  quite  an  embarrassment  of 
riches  ?  Furthermore,  what  shall  be  said  of  the  contradic- 
tory statements:  that  the  moon  only  falls  two  miles  dur- 
ing the  entire  month;  that  she  doesn't  fall  at  all,  since  she 
perennially  preserves  her  mean  altitude;  that  she  falls 
out  to  apogee  and  in  to  perigee  31,000  miles  alternately; 
and,  finally,  that  she  falls  not  uniformly  but  accelera- 
tively? 

Suppose  that  you  were  called  upon  to  run  a  hundred 
yards  against  time,  starting  from  scratch  and  thence  to 
and  around  a  goal  post  and  return ;  do  you  think  you  could 
make  as  good  a  showing  and  with  no  greater  expenditure 
of  energy  as  in  a  straightaway  course  of  the  same  length! 
Of  course  you  couldn't ;  and  you  could  not  find  a  sane  boy 
old  enough  to  know  what  it  means  to  run  such  a  race  who 
would  say  you  could.  Astronomers,  however,  tell  us  that 
the  moon  can!  Every  month  she  starts  from  perigee, 
runs  her  way  out  to  aphelion,  makes  a  wide  detour,  and 
returns  to  the  starting  point.  At  all  points  in  her  orbit 
180  degrees  apart,  her  compass  direction  is  exactly  re- 
versed, showing  that  she  must  arrest  all  her  motion  east- 
ward or  westward,  as  the  case  may  be,  before  she  can 
acquire  a  new  motion  westward  or  eastward ;  yet  month 
after  month  she  has  been  doing  this  throughout  the  cen- 


52  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

turies,  without,  as  alleged,  drawing  upon  her  stored 
energy  to  the  extent  of  a  single  ounce,  and  without  the 
loss  of  a  shred  of  speed ! 

Again,  we  are  told  by  our  learned  teachers  that  the 
reason  the  moon  does  not  fall  upon  us  is  because  of  the 
fortunate  circumstance  that  her  motion  is  always  directed 
tangentially.  This,  obviously,  is  a  mere  begging  of  the 
question.  The  point  is,  what  keeps  it  thus  directed? 
Imagine  the  earth  and  moon  removed  to  outer  space, 
where  the  attractions  of  the  rest  of  the  universe  could  not 
interfere,  and  started  together  at  exactly  the  moon's 
present  speed,  along  lines  potentially  parallel  and  240,000 
miles  apart, — would,  or  would  they  not,  gradually  swerve 
from  the  parallels  and  within  the  space  of  a  week's  time, 
or  thereabouts,  collide  1  Of  course  they  would,  notwith- 
standing their  having,  by  supposition,  a  double  momen- 
tum to  overcome,  the  earth's  as  well  as  the  moon's.  Mani- 
festly, then,  there  is  nothing  in  the  abstract  idea  of  tan- 
gentially directed  motion  to  lift  our  problem  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  legitimate  effects  of  gravitational  at- 
traction. 

Imagine,  if  you  please,  some  marvelous  bird  as  large 
as  the  moon,  whose  wings  could  take  hold  upon  the  ether 
as  those  of  our  terrestrial  birds  do  on  the  air,  to  approach 
us  out  of  the  depth  of  space,  and  to  take  up  its  course  in 
the  wake  of  the  moon  at  precisely  the  latter 's  velocity ; 
and  when  the  race  was  full  on,  imagine,  further,  a  hunter 
to  shoot  the  bird  dead  in  full  flight.  Would  the  slain  bird 
and  the  inanimate  moon  be  subject  alike  to  the  same  laws 
of  matter,  and  should  we  then  have  two  satellites  in  place 
of  one?  Would  the  bird,  despite  its  death,  not  fall  to  the 
earth?  Or  could  it  fold  its  wings  and  still  keep  in  the 
race?  Would  it,  too,  dead  or  alive,  possess  " persistent" 
motion? 

Newton  supposed  that  by  argumentatively  eliminat- 
ing the  resistance  of  the  ether,  postulating  it  to  have  ex- 
istence but  no  body,  he  overcame  the  only  obstacle  to 
his  inertial  hypothesis.  In  this  he  was  culpably  in  error. 
Take  two  pails  precisely  alike  and  provided  with  lids. 


PLANETARY  MOTIONS  53 

Fill  one  with  sand,  letting  the  other  go  empty,  and  carry 
them  together  for  a  furlong.  Being  exactly  alike  in  size, 
they  are,  of  course,  equally  resisted  by  the  atmosphere. 
Which  arm,  however,  will  tire  first,  that  carrying  the  full 
pail,  or  the  other  one  1  The  former,  by  all  means !  The 
moon,  too,  has  a  load  resistance  to  overcome,  besides  hav- 
ing to  buffet  the  medium  it  traverses.  We  have  already 
seen  that  this  load  amounts  to  the  steady  downward  pull 
of  240  millions  of  millions  of  horses,  more  than  a  million 
times  greater  than  the  etheric  resistance  to  the  moon 
would  amount  to  were  that  medium  even  as  dense  as  our 
atmosphere  at  sea  level.  Talk  about  straining  at  gnats 
and  swallowing  camels !  Returning  again  to  the  pails ; 
would  you  say  that  by  running  the  furlong  instead  of 
walking  it,  you  would  lessen  the  work  done  proportion- 
ally! Certainly  not,  and  neither  can  the  imaginary  im- 
pulse that  fired  the  moon  on  her  course  relieve  her  of 
the  task  of  carrying  her  own  dead  weight.  You  cannot 
sophistrize  gravity  out  of  existence.  To  support  the 
moon  during  the  29.5  days  of  her  monthly  journey  from 
perigee  to  perigee  and  bring  her  back  to  the  same  alti- 
tude, she  must  from  some  genuine  source — not  from 
empty  imagination  or  word-juggling — draw  just  as  much 
lifting  power  as  would  be  required  to  counteract  the 
earth's  gravitation  did  she  possess  no  initial  tangential 
translation  whatever. 

As  suggested  before  in  the  introductory  chapter,  it 
has  been  the  habit  of  those  who  make  a  study  of  the 
heavens,  from  time  immemorial,  to  anticipate  finding  a 
good  deal  of  mystery  and  miracle  intermingled  with 
prosaic  fact.  The  supposition  that  nebulae  rotate  of 
themselves  is  a  modern  example  of  this  primitive  instinct. 
So  is  the  crude  belief  in  the  spontaneity  of  celestial  mo- 
tions in  general,  and  in  the  inherence  in  them  of  persis- 
tency as  an  abstract  quality.  Perhaps,  however,  the  most 
typical  instance  of  this  superstitious  streak  in  modern 
astronomers  is  their  conception  of  the  significance  of  the 
law  of  the  conservation  of  moment  of  momentum.  By  ob- 
servation and  computation,  the  astronomers  have  dis- 
covered the  fact  (for  such  it  is,  subject  to  a  modification 


54  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

to  be  explained  later  on)  that  the  sum  of  the  momenta, 
axial  and  orbital  together,  of  any  given  system  remains 
the  same  from  year  to  year.  (Upon  this  rock  it  was  that 
the  Nebular  Hypothesis  met  final  shipwreck,  but  of  this  in 
a  later  chapter).  They  find,  for  example,  that  the  plan- 
ets, in  their  revolutions  around  the  sun,  do  not  follow 
their  courses  without  regard  to  what  the  others  are  doing, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  rhythmically  swing  in  and  out  from 
their  aphelion  to  perihelion  in  such  a  way  that,  no  matter 
where  a  particular  planet  may  be  in  its  orbit,  whether 
going  fast  at  perihelion  or  slow  at  aphelion,  the  aggregate 
momentum  of  the  group  continues  unchanged:  just  as 
though  there  were  an  understanding  among  them,  or  as  if 
they  were  controlled  by  some  guiding  hand.  Now, 
astronomers  do  not  make  any  pretense  of  understanding 
this  mystery;  all  they  know  is  that  it  is  a  fact  of  observa- 
tion. Unfortunately,  however,  they  presume  to  build 
upon  it,  construing  it  not  as  the  manifestation  of  an  un- 
known physical  cause  but  as  a  sort  of  teleological  ordina- 
tion transcending  natural  law. 

To  illustrate  how  arbitrary  and  supernatural  they 
conceive  this  law  to  be :  Suppose,  to  take  the  case  of  the 
earth-moon  system,  we  call  the  earth 's  axial  momentum 
A,  the  moon's  B,  and  the  momentum  of  the  moon's  orbital 
motion  C,  then  A+B+C  must  always,  under  the  "law", 
equal  an  invariable  quantity  M.  Suppose,  further,  say 
they,  that  from  any  cause  whatsoever  (as,  for  instance, 
by  colliding  with  a  comet  by  a  glancing  stroke),  the 
earth's  rotation,  A,  should  be  greatly  accelerated,  then  B 
and  C,  or  one  or  other  of  them,  would  have  to  slow  up  cor- 
respondingly so  that  A'  +B'+C',  the  new  values,  might 
still  be  equal  to  M  -  -  not  to  M',  but  to  M.  On  the  other 
hand,  they  assert,  that  if  the  comet  should  hit  the  moon, 
sending  her  out  fifty-thousand  miles  or  so  further,  the 
earth  would  obediently  rotate  faster  of  its  own  accord, 
like  a  creature  of  sense,  to  make  up  for  the  moon's  slower 
orbital  motion,  at  the  new  distance !  To  the  astronomer 
the  phenomenon  is  an  uncanny  one,  without  rhyme  or 
reason ;  a  mystery  as  cryptic  and  capricious  as  luck  at 
cards. 


PLANETARY  MOTIONS  55 

It  is  upon  this  abstract,  metaphysical,  arbitrary,  un- 
understood  ' '  law ' '  that  the  world  of  science  has  erected 
its  proudest  generalization,  the  doctrine  of  the  conserva- 
tion of  energy,  alias,  the  persistence  of  force,  correlation 
of  forces,  transmutation  of  energy,  mechanical  equiva- 
lents etc. — high  sounding  phrases  that  all  alike  decree  the 
death  of  Nature.  In  the  following  pages  I  shall'  peremp- 
torily challenge  this  doctrine  as  absurd  and  unworkable, 
and  a  mill-stone  around  the  neck  of  Science.  ' '  Beware  of 
him  of  whom  all  men  speak  well, ' '  exhorted  the  ancient 
seer.  Beware,  say  I,  of  this  doctrine  of  conservation 
which  all  the  world  extols.  I  expect  to  prove  to  you,  dear 
reader,  that  this  mysterious  conservation  of  moment  of 
momentum  is  as  simple  a  physical  phenomenon  in  essence 
as  the  rotating  of  a  top ;  also,  that  the  molar  movements 
of  the  heavenly  bodies  are  not  accomplished  without  the 
expenditure  of  power,  but  with  a  power,  GRAVITATION,  that 
is  at  once  creative  and  coordinating. 

To  sum  up,  the  planetary  theory  of  Newton  holds,  in 
effect :  That  the  planets  are  revolving  around  the  sun  by 
reason  of  certain  original  rectilinear  motions  having 
miraculously  belonged  to  them  under  some  pre-existing 
order  of  nature ;  that  they  travel  through  a  medium  pos- 
sessing objective  existence  without  substance ;  that  they 
can  change  their  courses  and  bear  loads  without  loss  of 
momentum ;  that  they  have  fortuitously  happened  to  ally 
themselves  to  the  same  sun,  to  have  hit  upon  approxi- 
mately the  same  plane,  to  be  traveling  in  the  same  direc- 
tion, to  have  velocities  bearing  a  fixed  ratio  to  each  other 
and  to  their  solar  distances,  and  finally,  that  after 
hundreds  of  millions  of  years  no  accidents  have  happened 
to  any  of  them,  by  meteoric  collisions  or  otherwise,  to  dis- 
turb this  precarious  arrangement.  It  neglects  to  take 
into  account  the  factor  of  the  stellar  attractions,  the  sun 's 
movement  in  space,  the  age  of  the  sun  and  earth,  or  the 
rotation  of  nebulae.  It  does  not  clinch  the  law  of  gravita- 
tion, or  explain  the  moon 's  secular  acceleration,  or  solve 
the  problem  of  the  tides,  or  account  for  meteors,  or  ex- 
plain the  relationship  between  comets,  asteroids,  and 
planets,  or  give  the  physical  basis  for  the  phenomenon  of 


56  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

conservation  of  moment  of  momentum.  It  harnesses  bul- 
lets with  horses,  and  pits  finite  moments  against  creative 
gravity.  It  pretends  that  an  arc  is  as  long  as  its  tangent, 
that  the  moon  is  falling  to  the  earth's  limb  instead  of  to- 
ward its  center,  that  persistent  is  a  synonym  for  inertial, 
and  that  the  whole  minus  an  infinite  number  of  times  all 
its  parts  is  still  equal  to  itself. 

Then  why,  you  may  ask,  has  the  theory  held  sway  so 
long!  The  answer  is  simple  and  lies  in  the  nature  of  man 
himself,  who  finds  in  faith  of  some  kind  intellectual  as 
well  as  religious  repose.  Just  as  many  honest  souls  be- 
lieve in  this  or  that  theological  dogma  under  the  mis- 
taken conviction  that  denial  thereof  involves  a  denial  of 
the  Christian's  God,  so  do  men  believe  in  this  inertial 
theory  under  the  hallucination  that  to  deny  it  is  to  sacri- 
fice the  great  cosmic  principle  of  Gravitation  itself.  My 
system  calls  for  no  such  sacrifice. 


Ill 

THE  PEIME  EESULTANT 

LAPLACE  was  right  in  assuming  that  the  number- 
less concordances  exhibited  in  our  planetary  system 
cannot  be  the  results  of  blind  chance.  So  far  as 
the  principles  of  the  Newtonian  system  go,  the  planets 
are  restricted  only  to  orbits  having  the  form  of  conic 
sections.  These  orbits  might  be  as  elongated  as  those  of 
comets,  or  as  inclined  as  the  earth's  axis,  or  possess  any 
other  eccentricity  or  tilt  you  please.  Some  might  revolve 
clockwise,  others  contra-clockwise,  others,  still,  straight 
up  and  down,  backward  or  forward,  through  the  celestial 
poles,  for  all  the  light  Newtonian  theories  throw  upon  the 
matter.  The  fact,  therefore  that  the  planets  do  not  re- 
volve thus  indiscriminately,  but  conspicuously  seek  the 
same  plane,  revolve  in  the  same  direction,  rotate  on  their 
axes  in  the  same  sense,  and  describe  near-circle  orbits,  is 
decidedly  too  striking  and  significant  to  be  dismissed  as 
mere  coincidence,  and  demands  more  than  a  teleological 
explanation.  Indeed,  what  safe  confidence  can  be  placed 
in  any  cosmic  theory  that  fails,  as  Newton's  confessedly 
does,  to  clear  up  these  remarkable  concordances  as  one  of 
its  primary  tasks  and  tests? 

It  is  as  plain  as  the  noonday  sun  that  the  explanation 
we  are  groping  for  is  a  dynamical  one ;  one,  too,  suffi- 
ciently comprehensive  and  general  to  compass  in  its 
mighty  grasp  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  the  system, 
so  as  to  ensure  that  the  effects  it  brings  about  may  be 
universally  consistent.  The  new  factor,  moreover,  must 
allow  as  well  for  the  exceptions  to  the  general  rule :  it 
must  be  able  to  account,  differentially,  for  the  elongated 


58  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

orbits  of  comets  as  satisfactorily  as  for  the  rotundity  of 
those  of  the  planets;  for  the  high  inclinations  of  the 
asteroidal  orbits  as  for  the  narrowness  of  the  zodiac ;  for 
the  rare  cases  of  retrograde  motion  as  for  the  vastly  more 
numerous  direct.  On  top  of  all  this,  the  force  we  are  in 
search  of  must  not  be  speculative  and  imaginary,  but  sub- 
stantial and  of  proven  worth ;  and  it  must  conform  to  all 
the  facts.  In  a  word,  the  motive  power  we  are  seeking  is 
no  other  than  an  extraneous  source  of  GRAVITATION. 

Doubtless  the  reader  is  familiar  with  the  phenome- 
non of  the  miniature  whirlpool  that  forms  on  the  surface 
of  a  basin  of  water  while  escaping  through  a  central 
outlet  in  the  bottom.  Next  the  circumference  the  rota- 
tion, as  you  know,  is  relatively  slow,  but  it  increases 
rapidly  toward  the  center,  where  often  a  hollow  cone  is 
formed  round  which  the  water  revolves  with  high  speed. 
Do  you  know  the  reason  for  this?  It  is  because  the 
equilibrium  of  the  water,  as  a  whole,  is  constantly  being 
unsettled  by  the  falling  away  of  its  support,  and  the  act 
of  gyration  follows  as  an  automatic  effort  at  a  general 
balancing.  If  the  basin  were  very  deep  and  the  process 
sufficiently  prolonged,  you  might  perhaps  find  it  worth 
while  to  investigate  the  law  of  gyration  by  sprinkling 
some  sawdust  on  the  surface  and  timing  the  turns  at  dif- 
ferent distances  from  the  axis  of  rotation.  I  can  tell  you 
the  answer,  namely,  the  cubes  of  the  distances  are  as  the 
squares  of  the  periodic  times. 

This  phenomenon  has  several  curious  counterparts 
in  nature — in  the  ocean,  in  the  atmosphere,  and  in  the 
skies.  Thus  Sir  John  Murray  (The  Ocean,  p.  198)  says: 
"The  Michael  Sars  Expedition  of  1910  measured  tidal 
currents  in  the  open  ocean  down  to  a  depth  of  400 
fathoms.  It  was  found  that  the  currents  at  274  fathoms 
ran  in  the  opposite  direction  to  that  of  the  upper  layers 
which  again  approached  that  of  the  currents  at  much 
greater  depths.  At  certain  moments  the  currents  appear 
to  be  arranged  in  the  form  of  a  spiral  staircase,  the  whole 
system  turning  in  clockwise  direction  from  top  to  bot- 
tom. "  Again,  Professor  W.I.  Milham  in  his  standard 
work  (Meteorology,  p.  162),  describes  a  similar  peculi- 


THE  PBIME  RESULTANT  59 

arity  regarding  the  action  of  the  atmospheric  tides  at 
the  poles,  even  going  so  far  as  specifically  to  liken  it  to 
the  "  behavior  of  water  in  a  wash-bowl  while  escaping 
through  a  central  vent. ' ' 

Now,  if  you  will,  slip  on  your  wings  of  imagination 
and  fly  with  me  to  a  point  in  the  heavens  where  we  can 
obtain  a  good  bird's  eye  view  of  our  solar  system  spread 
broadside  below  us.  But  let  us  not  view  it,  as  custom- 
arily, from  the  north,  but  from  the  south  side  of  the 
ecliptic,  for  there  is  a  good  reason  which  shall  presently 
appear.  Note  the  enormous  size  of  the  system.  The  sun 
in  the  focus  is  himself  so  huge  that  from  his  center  to  his 
circumference  is  almost  200,000  miles  greater  than  from 
the  earth  to  the  moon.  Yet  that  immense  body,  if  viewed 
from  Neptune,  his  outermost  planet,  2,800,000,000  miles 
away,  would  barely  show  a  disc  to  the  naked  eye.  Suppose 
Uranus,  whose  distance  is  1,800,000,000  miles,  to  be 
directly  opposite  Neptune,  on  the  other  side  of  the  sun, 
and  then  imagine  a  giant  sun  big  enough  to  fill  in  the  gap 
from  one  planet  to  the  other.  Retire  now  in  spirit  to  the 
distance  of  the  nearest  star,  Alpha  Centauri,  some  thirty 
million,  million  miles  away,  then  will  this  giant  sun  of  our 
imagination  appear  to  you  almost  exactly  of  the  same  size 
as  would  the  real  sun  to  an  inhabitant  of  Neptune ! 

We  see  then  that,  scattered  as  the  members  of  our 
system  may  be,  and  minute  as  they  are  as  compared  with 
their  separating  distances,  they  are  nevertheless  next 
door  neighbors  when  contrasted  with  the  stars  in  general. 
It  is  because  of  this  relative  isolation  that  they  are  en- 
abled to  retain  their  identity  as  a  group  or  unit.  That 
they  form  a  real  unit  or  machine  is  sufficiently  evident 
from  many  circumstances  whose  concerted  evidence  it  is 
futile  to  gainsay ;  the  vital  problem  being,  to  what  extent 
are  they  allied  and  what  are  the  terms  of  their  confedera- 
tion? 

Now,  we  cannot  master  any  subject  thoroughly  save 
by  considering  it  in  all  its  relations.  A  man  may  be  at  once 
a  son,  father,  functionary,  citizen,  cosmopolite — each  of 
which  characters  implies  higher  units  of  which  he  is  but  a 
fractional  part.  The  question  suggests  itself ;  May  not 


60  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

the  solar  system,  also,  be  but  a  cog  in  a  yet  greater  ma- 
chine, and  should  it  not  be  interpreted  internally  as  af- 
fected by  externals? 

Gravitation  I  accept  as  an  objective  reality.  I  recog- 
nize the  right  of  the  reader  to  accept  or  reject  it  at  his 
option,  but  unless  he  is  willing  to  accept  it  in  its  broadest 
implications  he  may  just  as  well  stop  here.  If  the  force 
of  gravitation  extends  from  the  moon  to  the  earth,  from 
the  earth  to  the  sun,  and  from  the  sun  to  Neptune,  with- 
out sagging  of  the  law,  I  contend  there  is  no  logical 
reason  why  it  should  not  extend  throughout  the  universe 
to  its  outermost  limits.  Moreover,  if  this  be  indeed  true, 
you  can  no  more  solve  the  problems  of  our  system,  or  of 
the  earth  alone,  without  taking  this  new  relation  into  ac- 
count than  you  can  explain  our  change  of  seasons  without 
mentioning  the  sun. 

Suppose  only  two  bodies  to  exist  in  space,  at  rest,  and 
separated  from  each  other  by  a  finite  distance,  they 
would  then  inevitably  approach  each  other  in  a  direct  line 
and  finally  meet.  Supposing  the  law  of  equilibrium  to 
apply,  namely,  that  freely  moving  bodies  seek  their  lowest 
center  of  gravity;  the  direction  of  the  axes  of  the  two 
bodies  would  in  that  case  point  each  other  out  in  the  sky 
until  they  met.  Suppose,  now,  we  add  a  third  body  and 
call  them  A,  B  and  C,  all  of  the  same  size,  starting  from 
rest,  and  so  placed  as  to  mark  the  points  of  an  equilateral 
triangle.  In  this  case  the  axes  of  the  bodies  would  not 
point  to  each  other,  but  would  instead  aim  at  the  blank 
point  being  the  mathematical  center  of  the  triangle,  where 
eventually  they  would  all  simultaneously  collide. 

Now,  we  do  not  live  in  a  universe  of  two  or  three 
bodies,  but  in  one  of  many  millions ;  not  in  one  of  two 
dimensions,  but  of  three.  Moreover,  the  planet  we  live  on 
is  pointing  to  something  with  its  axis.  To  what,  then,  if 
not  to  the  mathematical  point  to  which  the  stars  with 
their  resultant  attraction  are  drawing  us  ?  Here  you  may 
interject  that  this  cannot  be  true,  because  if  the  earth  be 
indeed  so  falling,  it  is  falling  in  vacuo  and  that  bodies  so 
falling  do  not  obey  the  general  law  of  equilibrium.  I 
shall  answer  this  objection  squarely  in  a  future  chapter. 


THE  PRIME  RESULTANT  61 

Assuming,  then,  for  the  time  being  at  least,  that  the 
law  of  equilibrium  is  too  precious  to  be  cast  aside  without 
a  struggle  to  preserve  it,  you  may  ask  next,  ' '  How  can  we 
tell  whether  the  earth  is  falling  north  or  south'?"  I 
answer,  by  contemplation  of  the  earth  itself.  Many  at- 
tempts have  been  made  from  time  to  time  to  explain  the 
great  preponderance  of  continents  in  our  northern  hemi- 
sphere and  their  pronounced  tendency  to  cluster  around 
the  north  pole.  No  one  needs  to  be  told  that  rock  is 
heavier  than  water,  and  where  the  contest  is  for  the 
lowest  place,  the  weightier  substance  will  sink  and  cause 
the  level  of  the  lighter,  liquid,  to  rise.  Consider,  also, 
that  the  longer  a  cause  continues,  the  more  its  effects 
accumulate  and  thrust  themselves  into  evidence.  The 
earth  has  demonstrably  been  suspended  over  the  abyss  of 
space  for  millions  of  years,  until,  as  in  the  case  of  a  floral 
hanging-basket,  its  crust  has,  so  to  speak,  protruded 
downward  through  the  meshes.  After  this  manner  it  is 
that  mountain  ranges  are  formed  on  so  huge  a  scale.  Like 
cakes  of  ice  jamming  against  a  pier,  the  hinder  continents, 
or,  often,  the  ocean  beds  grown  irresistibly  ponderous  by 
the  sedimentary  accumulations  of  ages,  press  or  lurch 
heavily  forward,  not  only  relegating  the  oceans  to  the 
rear  (south),  but  crowding  the  land  masses  in  front, 
bending,  jamming,  wrecking  and  crumpling  them  until, 
for  the  time  being,  further  progress  becomes  stalled. 
Thus  the  earth's  crust  moves  in  gigantic  billows  and 
alternately  rises  above  and  sinks  below  the  level  of  the 
sea.  Most  certainly,  then,  the  northern  hemisphere  is  the 
heavier,  hence  the  under,  and  the  earth  is  falling  in  the 
line  of  its  axis  northwardly.  Logically,  therefore,  our 
school  maps  should  be  inverted,  and  it  is  my  opinion  that 
had  they  been  hitherto  so  printed,  this  discovery  would 
years  ago  have  been  anticipated.  The  Arctic  regions  are 
not  the  roof  of  the  world,  as  they  are  often  called,  but  the 
bottom  of  it. 

It  has  long  been  one  of  the  primary  puzzles  of 
geology  as  to  why  mountain  ranges  seemingly  wait  to  be 
lifted  up  until  the  sedimentary  rocks,  of  which  they  are 
mostly  formed,  attain  their  maximum  thickness.  Profes- 


62  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

sor  Joly,  for  instance  (Radioactivity  and  Geology,  p.  97), 
quotes  Dana  approvingly  as  follows : 

A  mountain  range  of  the  common  type  like  that  to  which  the 
Appalachians  belong  is  made  out  of  the  sedimentary  formation  of 
a  long  preceding  era ;  beds  that  were  laid  down  conformably,  and 
in  succession,  until  they  had  reached  the  needed  thickness;  beds 
spreading  over  a  region  tens  of  thousands  of  square  miles  in  area. 
The  region  over  which  sedimentary  formations  were  in  progress 
in  order  to  make  finally  the  Appalachian  range  reached  from  New 
York  to  Alabama  and  had  a  breadth  of  100  to  200  miles,  and  the 
pile  of  horizontal  beds  along  the  middle  was  40,000  feet  in  depth. 
The  pile  from  the  Wahsatch  Mountains  was  60,000  feet  thick,  ac- 
cording to  King.  The  beds  of  the  Appalachians  were  not  laid 
down  in  a  deep  ocean,  but  in  shallow  waters  where  a  gradual 
subsidence  was  in  progress,  and  they  at  last,  when  ready  for  the 
genesis,  lay  in  a  trough  40,000  feet  deep,  filling  the  trough  to  the 
brim.  It  thus  appears  that  epochs  of  mountain  making  have  oc- 
curred only  after  intervals  of  quiet  in  the  history  of  a  continent. 
*  *  *  Nor  would  the  list  of  such  crustal  movements  be  complete 
save  in  the  enumeration  of  every  great  range  upon  the  earth. 

Plainly,  then,  the  formation  of  great  mountain  chains 
is  analogous  to  the  action  of  condensed  moisture  on  the 
outside  of  an  ice-cold  pitcher.  For  a  second  or  so,  a  small 
drop,  after  coursing  down  an  inch  or  two,  will  often  stop 
dead,  held  in  its  place  by  adhesion,  until,  being  reinforced 
by  a  fresh  drop  following  in  its  track,  it  will  again  start 
downward,  perhaps  to  stop  a  second  time  and  repeat  the 
performance  before  attaining  the  bottom.  So,  before  a 
mountain  range  can  be  lifted  into  place,  a  great  dynami- 
cal agency  must  be  accumulated  for  the  work  in  hand. 
This  Nature  does  gradually  by  laying  one  stratum  upon 
the  other  on  the  bed  of  the  ocean  and  incidentally  eroding 
away  the  obstructing  land  in  front  out  of  which  to  form 
those  strata,  until  the  weaker  becomes  the  stronger,  or  the 
lighter  the  heavier,  and  crowds  its  way  onward  toward 
the  "bottom".  Of  course  this  process  is  exceedingly 
slow,  and  its  results  are  normally  very  gradual,  the  strata 
bending  rather  than  fracturing ;  but  by  no  means  is  this 
always  the  case,  for  sudden  slips  are  here  just  as  bound  to 
occur  as  landslips  at  the  Panama  Canal  or  iceslips  in  the 
Alpine  glaciers.  I  should  like  very  much  to  pursue  this 
principle  further  into  its  many  geographical,  geological 


THE  PRIME  RESULTANT  63 

and  biological  ramifications,  but  it  would  lead  us  too  far 
afield,  and,  besides,  would  require  several  times  the  size 
of  this  work  for  its  proper  presentment.  The  learned 
geographer,  if  he  but  once  master  the  faculty  of  viewing 
things  in  their  obvious  aspects  and  relations  instead  of 
through  the  blurred  and  billowy  spectacles  of  Authority, 
can  in  an  hour's  time  reconstruct  all  he  knows  of  these 
three  subjects  into  a  correlated  system.  The  main  key 
lies  in  this  fact,  that  the  earth 's  general  form,  its  topog- 
raphy, and  its  continental  distribution  and  configura- 
tion, are  determined  by  a  tri-dimensional  gravitational 
scheme,  namely,  (1)  by  the  point  of  attraction  connoted 
by  its  own  center  of  gravity,  whose  endeavor  it  is  to 
mould  the  planet  into  a  perfect  sphere;  (2)  by  the  plane 
of  attraction,  to-wit,  the  influence  of  the  other  members  of 
the  solar  system,  whose  function  it  is  to  produce  the  tides 
in  atmosphere  and  ocean,  etc.,  and  (3)  by  the  third 
dynamical  dimension,  completing  the  "solid",  being  the 
joint  or  composite  attraction  of  the  outside  universe  that 
compels  the  earth,  under  the  fundamental  law  of  equili- 
brium, to  keep  lowering  her  center  of  gravity  more  and 
more  by  precipitating  her  heavier  surface  substances 
north-pole-ward.  These  three  influences,  then,  all  op- 
erating simultaneously,  cannot  but  result  in  a  deforma- 
tion of  the  general  contour  of  the  earth ;  producing,  as  the 
most  important  effects  besides  those  mentioned,  the 
squashing  or  flattening  of  the  earth,  the  raising  up  of  the 
equatorial  protuberance,  the  special  flattening  of  the 
northern  hemisphere,  and  the  relative  arching  of  the 
southern,  all  of  which,  indeed,  seem  to  be  objective  facts. 
It  has  recently  been  established  that  the  Antarctic  contin- 
ent has  in  time  past  been,  and  is  to-day,  submerged  in 
large  part.  This  is  to  be  expected,  for,  being  on  top,  it 
cannot  easily  slip  off  to  one  side,  but  must  sink  in ;  like  a 
hat  on  one 's  head  it  'sits  firmly  when  worn  straight,  but  it 
is  apt  to  fall  off  if  carelessly  tilted.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  presence  of  an  Arctic  ocean  close  around  the  pole  is 
equally  to  be  expected,  the  continents  having  become 
wedged  against  each  other  before  actually  attaining  the 
goal,  and  forming  a  protecting  shoulder. 


64  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

In  earlier  eons,  the  migration  of  the  continents 
northwardly  was  doubtless  much  faster,  relatively,  than 
it  is  to-day,  for  now  they  have  become  jammed,  and  hence 
much  longer  accumulations  of  depositions  must  precede 
every  infinitesimal  advance.  Have  you  ever  wondered 
how  the  Esquimaux  came  to  settle  in  the  Arctic  wilds? 
Have  you  never  marveled  at  the  highly  organized  forms 
of  life  that  inhabit  those  inhospitable  regions!  Do  you 
think  such  life  as  that  can  have  evolved  there  from  prim- 
ordial forms  1  No !  There  is  only  one  explanation  that 
will  serve,  and  that  is,  that  the  land  which  they  and  their 
forebears  have  inhabited  from  paleolithic  days  on,  has 
not  been  the  immovable  platform  for  which  they  have  all 
along  mistaken  it,  but  a  land  raft  that  imperceptibly  has 
carried  them  through  genial  climates  and  latitudes  to 
where  they  now  find  themselves.  But  this  is  not  to  be  a 
work  on  biology,  so  let  us  return  to  the  main  theme. 

Before  proceeding  to  the  more  general  problems  of 
the  solar  system,  let  me  emphatically  warn  the  reader 
against  inferring  that  the  axis  of  the  earth  is  pointing  to 
the  center  of  the  universe.  I  do  not  mean  to  convey  any 
such  impression.  An  apple  falling  from  the  twig  of  the 
tree  where  you  may  be  sitting  as  you  read  this,  and  one 
falling  at  the  same  time  in  the  antipodes,  though  in  ab- 
solute space  moving  in  opposite  directions,  are  really 
tending  toward  the  same  point,  namely,  the  earth's  center 
of  gravity.  But  no  one  would  think  of  arguing  from  this 
that  the  earth's  center  is  therefore  the  center  of  the  uni- 
verse! Mass  for  mass,  proximate  bodies  dictate  much 
more  strongly  than  those  more  remote  the  course  a  celes- 
tial orb  shall  follow,  and  no  two  bodies  are  affected  by  the 
sum  of  attractions  to  the  same  extent,  or  impelled  toward 
the  same  mathematical  point  in  space.  We  know, 
furthermore,  that  all  of  the  stars  are  in  rapid  movement, 
not  only  absolutely  but  relatively,  for  which  reason  the 
goal  or  focus  of  the  attracting  powers  is  forever  rhyth- 
mically shifting  about.  When  I  assert,  therefore,  that 
the  earth  is  headed  toward  a  Hank  point  in  the  heavens, 
I  mean  that  the  merging  of  all  the  attractions  focussed 
upon  her  unite  to  coerce  her  movement,  not  only  in  a 


THE  PRIME  RESULTANT 65 

definite  line  but  also  to  and  through  a  definite,  unmarked, 
mathematical  point  in  that  line.  This  line  I  call  the 
Prime  Resultant,  and  this  point,  the  Vertex,  which  latter, 
in  the  present  case,  coincides  with  the  dynamical  (not  the 
celestial)  pole  of  the  ecliptic.  The  Vertex,  then,  may  be 
described  as  the  hub  or  localized  center  of  attraction  for 
our  particular  planetary  system,  just  as  the  earth's 
center  is  for  all  objects  within,  say,  her  atmospheric  en- 
velope. To  make  the  matter  perhaps  still  clearer,  consult 
again  the  example  of  the  three  bodies,  A,  B,  and  C,  which 
we  assumed  to  be  arranged  in  the  form  of  an  equilaterial 
triangle.  There  the  center  of  the  triangle  is  the  "  ver- 
tex "  or  converging  point  for  all  three  bodies,  and  the  dis- 
tance from  that  point  to  either  of  the  three  severally  is 
the  prime  resultant  for  that  one  particular  body. 

Let  us  return  now  to  the  position  we  originally  oc- 
cupied, directly  over  and  far  south  of  the  sun,  and  looking 
straight  down  on  the  broad  plan  of  the  solar  system,  and 
let  us  suppose  that  we  remain  thus  fixed  in  space  so  that 
we  may  the  better  analyze  the  movements  of  the  group. 
It  is  customary  with  astronomers,  repeating,  in  their  way, 
the  awkward  method  of  geographers,  to  imagine  them- 
selves surveying  the  ecliptic  from  the  north.  According 
to  their  way  of  looking,  the  motions  of  the  earth  on  its 
axis,  of  the  planets  around  the  sun,  and  of  the  moon 
around  the  earth,  are  all  contra-clockwise  (like  a  clock 
dial  reflected  from  a  mirror),  whereas  viewed  from  the 
south,  as  I  advise,  those  motions  all  turn  clockwise.  It 
is  well  to  get  clearly  in  mind  right  at  the  very  outset  the 
fact  that  all  of  these  motions  run  in  the  same  direction. 
This  is  the  rule  throughout  the  system  (with  a  very  few 
minor  exceptions  among  the  satellites,  which  will  be  sub- 
sequently considered). 

My  object  in  viewing  the  ecliptic  from  the  south  in- 
stead of  from  the  north  is,  however,  of  much  greater 
significance  than  merely  to  aid  the  memory  by  substitut- 
ing a  right-handed  motion  in  place  of  a  left-handed  one. 
In  fact,  it  is  for  the  same  reason  that  I  recommend  the 
printing  of  terrestrial  maps  inverted,  namely,  to  instill 
and  cultivate  the  sense  that  we  are  falling,  and  that  north 


66  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

means  down.  I  wish  the  reader  to  realize  as  vividly  as 
possible  that  in  surveying  our  system  from  a  point  south 
of  it  he  is  looking  down  on  the  action  of  a  whirlpool, 
physically  as  real  as  the  surface  of  water  emptying  from 
a  wash-bowl.  Due  to  the  suction  of  the  Prime  Eesultant, 
the  weight  is  constantly  slipping  away,  more  at  the  center 
than  elsewhere,  necessitating  continuous  readjustment  of 
the  systemal  balance.  Due  to  its  mobility  and  molecular 
attraction,  the  water  in  the  basin  reacts  as  a  unit  to  cen- 
tral suction,  and,  in  the  same  manner,  the  movability  of 
the  planets  and  their  mutual  gravitational  attractions 
enable  them  to  constitute  themselves  into  a  gravitational 
unit  and  sub-units,  with  similar  power  to  readjust  their 
common  balance  by  a  process  which  may  be  described  as 
one  of  progressive  equilibrium.  There  is  the  great  whirl- 
pool embracing  the  system  as  a  whole,  and  there  are  also 
the  eddies  within  it  of  Jupiter  and  his  satellites,  Saturn 
and  his  rings,  and  the  rest.  Or,  if  you  like,  you  may  think 
of  our  system  as  a  prodigious  clock,  without  visible 
springs,  pinions,  or  hands,  and  with  mere  points  to  mark 
the  various  divisions  of  time,  being  driven  by  the  force 
of  its  own  fall.  As  the  earth  is  a  simple  body  conforming 
to  the  law  of  lowest  center,  so  the  earth  and  moon  to- 
gether form  a  compound  body  seeking  their  lowest 
common  center  of  gravity,  and  so,  too,  do  the  sun  and  all 
the  planets  and  their  retinues  summed  together  con- 
stitute a  complex  body,  riding  upon  one  common  center 
of  gravity.  Where  does  the  series  end,  or  has  it  an  end? 
May  not  our  system  be  but  a  member  of  a  system  next 
greater,  that  of  another  larger  still,  and  so  on  up  to  star- 
streams  and  the  great  whirling  tire  of  the  Milky  Way  it- 
self, welding  the  entire  universe,  be  it  finite  or  infinite, 
into  a  single  correlated  Whole,  all  under  the  unifying, 
organic  law  of  BALANCE  f 

Now,  with  this  key  in  hand,  let  us  resurrect  the  dif- 
ficulties which  confronted  us  before.  Take  the  instance 
of  the  earth  and  moon;  what  keeps  them  apart?  As  I 
stated  before,  no  two  bodies  in  the  universe  are  attracted 
precisely  with  the  same  force  nor  to  identically  the  same 
point  in  space.  Follow,  if  you  please,  that  ray  of  the 


THE  PRIME  RESULTANT  67 

Prime  Resultant  that  extends  from  the  center  of  gravity 
of  the  moon  to  the  Vertex,  also  that  ray  from  the  earth's 
center  of  gravity  to  the  same  point.  You  will  now,  I 
hope,  be  able  to  perceive  that  the  Vertex  is  not  the  simple 
mathematical  point  it  may  have  seemed  at  first  blush,  but 
a  PLEXUS  OF  MANY  STRESSES.  In  a  general  sense,  our  whole 
solar  system  has  indeed  the  same  Vertex,  but  to  that  Ver- 
tex each  individual  particle  and  molecule  is  attached  by 
its  own  independent  strand.  Between  these  strands 
there  is  in  every  case  a  minute  jog,  or  angle.  In  fact,  the 
strands  all  cross  each  other  at  diverse,  though  proximate, 
points  and  lead  away  beyond  the  Vertex.  Moreover,  they 
can  by  no  possibility  ever  fully  unwind,  though  always 
unwinding.  To  illustrate :  Take  a  yard  stick  and  from  its 
ends  pass  tethers  through  a  ring  letting  them  extend  a 
little  beyond,  being  careful  to  see  that  they  are  crossed 
where  they  pass  through  the  ring.  Now  pull  the  tips  of 
the  strings  and  you  will  find  there  is  a  torsion  on  the  stick 
tending  to  turn  it  around  its  axis,  which  torsion  will  cease 
only  when  the  strings  no  longer  cross.  As  I  said  before, 
in  the  case  of  the  earth  and  moon  (as  a  typical  example), 
their  gravitational  filaments  to  the  Vertex  stay  crossed 
and  are  always  "wound  up ", unceasingly  twisting  the  two 
bodies  round  and  round  each  other ;  the  rigidity  of  the 
stick  being  replaced  by  the  momentum  implanted  in  the 
bodies  by  their  cosmic  fall.  And  so  throughout  the  sys- 
tem and  the  universe. 

Thus  you  may  see  that  the  '  '  centrifugal  force ' '  of  the 
moon  is  a  reed  thing,  and  I  hope,  too,  that  you  perceive 
that  it  and  the  centripetal  attraction  of  the  earth  adjust 
themselves  to  one  another  automatically ;  which  means,  to 
perfection.  Our  old  equation,  then,  may  be  amended 
thus: 

M— C+C'=M' 

in  which  C  and  C'  are  immense  real  quantities  of  a 
creative  nature,  but  cancel  each  other,  in  the  shape  of 
work  done,  leaving  M'  continuously  equal  to  M.  In- 
cidentally, it  may  be  affirmed  that  the  moon  does  not  fall, 
in  any  fair  sense.  The  true  explanation  is,  that  between 
the  centrifugal  motion  maintained  by  the  Prime  Resultant 


68 FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

and  the  centripetal  attraction  of  the  earth,  there  is  a  con- 
stant equality.  We  have  hitched  two  horses  together  of 
equal  strength  and  pace,  to  team  the  moon  and  the  planets 
around  their  several  courses. 

There  is,  however,  a  slight  modification  of  this  prin- 
ciple that  must  be  taken  into  account;  slight  in  amount, 
but  vitally  important  theoretically.  It  is  this:  The 
Prime  Resultant,  being  gravitational  in  character,  such 
movement  as  it  gives  rise  to  is  a  falling  movement,  conse- 
quently accelerating.  The  moon,  therefore,  should 
logically  be  revolving  around  the  earth  faster  and  faster 
in  accordance  with  the  well-known  law  that  the  advance 
of  a  falling  body  increases  with  the  square  of  the  time. 
Harken  now  to  this  passage  from  Young  (Gen'l  Astr.  p. 
301),  and  note  the  italicized  words;  the  italics  being  his 
own: 

There  remains  one  lunar  irregularity  among  the  multitude  of 
lesser  ones,  which  is  of  great  interest  theoretically,  and  is  still  a 
bone  of  contention  among  mathematical  astronomers,  namely,  the 
secular  acceleration  of  the  moon's  mean  motion.  It  was  found 
by  Halley,  early  in  the  last  century,  by  a  comparison  of  ancient 
with  modern  eclipses,  that  the  month  is  certainly  shorter  than  it 
was  in  the  days  of  Ptolemy,  and  that  the  shortening  has  been  pro- 
gressive, apparently  going  on  continuously  °  °  °  °  In  100 
years  the  moon,  according  to  the  results  of  Laplace,  gets  in  ad- 
vance of  its  mean  place  about  10" ,  and  the  advance  increases 
with  the  square  of  the  time! 

This  vexed  question  of  the  acceleration  of  the  moon 
has,  since  the  time  of  Newton,  commanded  the  life  efforts 
of  some  of  the  best  mathematicians  the  world  has  pro- 
duced, always  with  one  goal  in  mind,  namely,  TO  SMOOTH 
IT  OUT  AND  CAUSE  IT  TO  DISAPPEAR.  It  seems  never  to  have 
occurred  to  any  of  them,  any  more  than  to  the  Ptolemaists 
struggling  with  their  seventieth  refractory  epicycle,  that 

ITS  VERY  REFUSAL  TO  IRON  OUT  IS  A  SIGNIFICANT  FACT  DIRECT- 
ING ATTENTION  TO  SOME  FUNDAMENTAL  ERROR.  An  idea  of 

the  enormous  amount  of  labor  involved  in  this  mathe- 
matical problem,  known  among  astronomers  as  "the 
theory  of  the  moon ' ',  may  be  gained  from  this  statement 
of  Professor  Ernest  W.  Brown,  the  latest,  and  now  rec- 


THE  PRIME  EESULTANT  69 

ognized  as  our  highest,  authority  on  this  particular  mat- 
ter: 

Mr.  Sterner  and  I  in  our  investigation  of  the  theory  of  the 
moon's  motion,  have  probably  occupied  altogether  about  8  or  9000 
hours.  There  were  about  13,000  multiplications  of  series  made, 
containing  some  400,000  separate  products ;  the  whole  of  the  work 
required  the  writing  of  between  4  and  5  million  of  digits  and  plus 
and  minus  signs.  Although  the  problem  now  completed  con- 
stitutes by  far  the  longer  part  of  the  whole,  much  remains  to  be 
done  before  it  is  advisable  to  proceed  to  the  construction  of  the 
tables. 

Here,  then,  is  the  practical  solution  of  this  vexed 
problem  (incidentally,  also,  of  Mercury's  perihelion  an- 
omaly), a  solution  that  restores  to  us  the  law  of  the  in- 
verse square  pure  and  undefiled.  Now,  I  do  not  assert 
that  computers  can  hereafter  discard  the  minute  New- 
combian  decimal,  of  which  I  have  previously  spoken,  and 
get  the  correct  answers  notwithstanding.  By  no  means ! 
What  I  claim  to  do  is  to  explain  the  origin  and  justify  the 
use  of  the  decimal  and,  its  significance  being  recognized, 
to  construct  the  science  so  as  to  conform.  Kepler  and 
Newton  were  both  wrong,  and  the  astronomers  of  to-day 
are  wrong,  in  declaring  that  the  planets  revolve  per  prin- 
cipium  in  conic  sections;  they  revolve  in  conic  spirals. 
This,  then,  is  what  I  had  in  mind  when  I  asserted  in  the 
Introduction  that  the  minute  decimal  referred  to  could 
be  eliminated  only  by  the  complete  overturning  of  the 
Newtonian  systeml 

If  I  am,  in  very  truth,  correct  in  the  hypothesis  that 
the  solar  system  is  gyrating  as  the  natural  result  of  a 
continuous  struggle  for  equilibrium  against  the  un- 
settling suction  of  the  Prime  Resultant,  then  the  follow- 
ing conclusions  follow  as  plain  matters  of  course : 

1.  That  such  equilibrium  can  be  maintained  only  by 
steady  rotation  of  its  members  in  the  same  direction. 

2.  That  circularity  of  orbits  is  the  natural  evolution 
of  this  process. 

3.  That  the  stablest  form  into  which  a  body  can  be 
fashioned  is,  gravitationally  speaking,  the  flattest  form; 


70  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

because  the  center  of  gravity  is  then  depressed  the  lowest 
possible.  The  planets,  for  this  reason,  in  the  pursuit  of 
their  general  equilibrium,  affect,  very  closely,  the  same 
plane  of  rotation  around  the  sun.  So  near  are  they  to 
one  plane,  indeed,  that,  reduced  to  a  small  enough  scale, 
the  system  would  practically  fit  into  a  box  about  the 
shape  of  a  silver  dollar. 

4.  That  what  can  be  truthfully  said  of  the  planets 
in  these  respects  applies  with  no  less  force  to  the  subor- 
dinate systems  and  to  the  axial  rotations  of  the  planets. 

Thus  does  the  introduction  of  the  Prime  Eesultant 
into  astronomical  theory  justify  its  entrance  by  explain- 
ing, dynamically,  all  those  numerous  and  amazing  con- 
cordances that  Laplace  sought  to  explain  by  postulating 
the  monstrosity  of  a  self -rotating  nebula,  Indeed,  it  ex- 
plains the  rotation  of  all  the  nebulas  just  as  effectively, 
for  these,  too,  are  gravitational  units.  So  are  many  of 
the  star  clusters.  Even  the  Milky  Way  itself  is  a  gravi- 
tational unit,  composed  though  it  is  of  billions  of  separate 
stars,  seeking  its  equilibrium  with  respect  to  the  stellar 
resultant  playing  upon  it  from  many  distant  universes 
like  it,  so  far  distant,  indeed,  that  their  light  dies  out  be- 
fore it  can  reach  us.  The  facts  are  not  susceptible  of  ob- 
servational proof,  but  to  my  vision  the  Galaxy  is  nothing 
else  than  a  disc  of  starry  globes  extending  indefinitely  be- 
yond our  keenest  telescope,  and  revolving,  like  our  solar 
system,  about  an  axis  passing  through  its  poles. 

RETROGRADE  MOTIONS 

"But  what  about  the  retrograde  motions ?"  I  seem 
to  hear  asked.  These  may  be  generally  divided  into  two 
classes :  those  of  asteroids,  and  those  of  satellites. 

The  first  of  these  classes  involves  the  solution  of  the 
nature  and  origin  of  the  comets.  These  bodies,  as  I  shall 
later  explain  more  fully,  are  fragments  cast  off  by  ex- 
ploded stars  and  enter  our  system  as  fugitives  from  their 
own  land  seeking  an  asylum  in  ours.  When  they  first 
make  their  appearance,  they  exhibit  certain  eccentricities 


THE  PRIME  RESULTANT  71 

that  proclaim  them  at  once  as  strangers.  For  one  thing, 
their  orbits  are  very  elongated,  with  diverse  inclinations, 
and,  for  another,  they  are  just  as  likely  to  have  retro- 
grade as  direct  rotations.  It  goes  without  saying  that 
such  erratic  visitors  cannot  fail  to  disturb  the  balance  of 
our  system  to  some  extent,  and  themselves  be  reacted  up- 
on in  turn ;  just  as  the  throwing  of  a  basin  of  water  into 
the  sea  theoretically  affects  the  general  level  and  the  mu- 
tual relations  of  all  the  drops  in  it.  From  the  instant  of 
its  haphazard  injection  into  our  system,  the  comet  feels 
the  influence  of  the  gravitational  current  or  whirlpool  in 
which  the  planets  are  rotating,  and  immediately  begins 
the  process  of  accommodating  itself  to  the  balanced  order 
of  our  system.  This  process  is  vastly  prolonged,  but  it 
is  sure  and  steady,  and  it  results  finally  in  rounding  out 
the  comet 's  orbit,  in  reducing  its  inclination,  and  often  in 
converting  its  retrograde  motion,  if  such  it  had  at  the 
start,  into  a  direct  one.  In  short,  the  alien  becomes  a  full- 
fledged  citizen.  Thus  I  deduce  that  many  (not  all)  of  the 
asteroids  are  simply  domesticated  comets,  and  that  their 
departure  from  planetary  regularity  in  the  matters  of  re- 
trogression and  orbital  eccentricity  and  inclination  are 
just  so  many  survivals  of  their  preceding  cometary 
phase,  which  time  will  largely  wear  awray. 

There  is,  however,  a  second  cause  for  retrograde 
motions,  and  this  applies  more  particularly  to  satellites. 
The  three  or  four  instances  among  these  bodies  exhibit- 
ing this  peculiarity,  it  will  be  remembered,  are  the  outer- 
most members  of  their  respective  systems.  Now,  between 
the  eddy  of  Saturn's  group  and  that  of  the  Jovian  group, 
for  example,  there  is  a  point  or  line  where  the  circumfer- 
ence of  the  eddies  may  be  supposed  to  impinge  or  "inter- 
fere, ' '  whirling  there  in  opposite  directions.  This  region, 
however,  is  not  a  well  defined  line  but  a  rather  nebulous 
zone,  so  that  a  body  w^hich  for  any  reason  has  become  en- 
tangled in  it  halts,  as  it  were,  between  two  allegiances, 
undecided  whether  to  attach  itself  finally  to  Saturn's  sys- 
tem or  to  Jupiter's.  The  result  is,  obviously,  a  mixed  or 
hybrid  motion  whose  analysis  will  require  the  methods  of 
higher  mathematics  to  reduce  to  definite  terms  in  in- 


72  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

dividual  cases.  For  the  present  purposes,  it  is  sufficient 
to  characterize  the  effect  as  that  of  a  "back  eddy"  in  this 
complex  gravitational  whirlpool  of  ours. 

Here,  too,  we  have  the  complete  physical  explanation 
of  the  conservation  of  the  moment  of  momentum,  which, 
as  shown  in  the  preceding  chapter,  has  heretofore  been 
explained  teleogically.  The  Prime  Kesultant  is,  as  every- 
one can  readily  perceive,  a  physical  force  that  compasses 
the  entire  system,  so  that  all  changes  of  momentum  are 
accelerated  throughout  in  like  degree,  thus  all  but  con- 
cealing the  fact  of  change.  In  other  words,  the  yardstick 
with  which  we  here  measure  shrinks  and  expands  syn- 
chronously and  commensurately  with  what  it  is  employed 
to  measure.  The  conservation  theory  is  consequently 
not  correct  in  the  abstract  sense.  Our  planetary  system 
is  altering  its  aggregate  momentum,  in  keeping  with  the 
acceleration  of  its  cosmic  fall. 

Descartes  was  right  in  diagnosing  the  gyrations  of 
our  system  as  vortical  in  principle,  but  he  failed  to 
establish  the  fact  because  he  reasoned  without  universal 
gravitation. 

THE  PRECESSION  or  THE  EQUINOXES 

In  explaining  the  cause  of  the  seasons,  the  books  or- 
dinarily speak  of  the  earth's  axis  as  remaining  constantly 
parallel  to  itself,  thus  tilting  the  north  pole  toward  the 
sun  in  summer  and  hiding  it  from  him  in  the  winter. 
This  explanation  suffices  for  beginners  in  the  study  of  the 
science,  but  more  advanced  pupils  are  taught  that  the 
axis  does  not  remain  absolutely  parallel,  but  revolves 
around  like  the  axis  of  a  common  top  when  it  is  just  get- 
ting ready  to  fall  over.  This  movement  in  the  earth's 
case  is  exceedingly  slow,  requiring  almost  two  hundred 
and  sixty  centuries  to  complete  it !  The  way  astronomers 
originally  discovered  this  fact  was  by  noting  the  times  of 
the  recurrences  of  the  vernal  equinox.  This  has  since 
been  established  to  arrive  about  20  m.  23  s.  earlier  each 
succeeding  event,  making  what  is  known  as  our  tropical 
(weather)  year  that  much  shorter  than  the  sidereal  one. 


THE  PRIME  RESULTANT  73 

But  there  is  another  way  to  measure  this  change,  namely, 
by  the  length  of  arc  described,  and  this  amounts  to  50.2" 
per  annum.  This  circle  of  revolution  can  be  and  has  been 
mapped  upon  the  celestial  sphere,  or  at  least  a  consider- 
able arc  of  it  has  been,  from  data  which  have  come  down 
to  us  through  the  past  3,000  or  4,000  years.  Imagine  the 
axis  of  the  earth  extended  northwardly  to  the  farthest 
sky,  then  the  point  of  it,  which  now  lies  near  the  pole  star, 
does  not  rest  permanently  in  one  spot,  but  travels  anti- 
clockwise around  a  central  point,  called  by  astronomers 
the  pole  of  the  ecliptic,  but  which  is  not  marked  by  any 
star.  The  radius  of  that  circle  (mark  the  extraordinary 
coincidence)  is  23^>°,  which  is  just  exactly  the  inclination 
of  the  earth's  axis!  What  is  even  more  remarkable  is, 
that  in  all  my  reading  I  have  never  found  this  curious 
fact  alluded  to,  just  as  though  coincidences  such  as  this 
were  quite  the  normal  thing.  Nor  has  any  astronomer, 
as  far  as  I  am  aware,  ever  attempted  to  investigate  the 
marvel !  Yet  its  cosmic  significance  is  crucial. 

Newton,  groping  in  the  dark,  as  I  have  already  de- 
scribed, undertook  to  explain  the  fact,  but  not  the  coin- 
cidence. The  phenomenon  is  known  as  the  precession  of 
the  equinoxes.  Newton's  explanation  may  be  thus 
stated:  The  equatorial  radius  of  the  earth  exceeds  the 
polar  by  about  13  miles,  consequently  there  is  a  great 
ring  of  excess  matter  belting  the  planet  and  rotating 
obliquely  with  respect  to  the  ecliptic.  If  this  belt  were 
in  the  form  of  a  satellite,  he  reasoned,  it  would  rotate 
around  the  earth  agreeably  to  the  same  principles  of  ro- 
tation as  the  moon,  and  its  orbit  should  therefore  have 
nodes  and  exhibit  a  precessional  movement  of  those 
nodes.  But  the  ring,  he  went  on,  is  not  a  satellite,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  is  firmly  affixed  to  the  planet,  conse- 
quently its  natural  nodal  motion  of  rotation,  being  unable 
to  express  itself  otherwise,  must  react  upon  the  earth  it- 
self and  cause  a  wobbling  of  that  body's  axis,  technically 
called  nutation.  The  tendency  of  the  nodes  to  regress  he 
found  to  arise  from  the  fact,  in  the  case  of  the  moon,  that 
that  body  is  continually  shifting  from  one  side  of  the 
ecliptic  to  the  other,  and  that  the  sun's  attraction  upon  it 


74  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

is  forever,  though  vainly,  trying  to  bring  it  into  the  plane 
of  the  ecliptic,  a  condition  that  is  no  less  true  of  the  equa- 
torial protuberance. 

Newton's  Precession  Theory  Denied 

Now,  the  earth  rotates  on  its  axis  once  daily,  thus 
bringing  every  inch  of  its  equatorial  bulge  fairly  under 
the  sun's  attractive  influence.  The  cycle  of  causation  is 
complete,  why  should  not  the  cycle  of  effect  be,  also? 
Can  you  think  of  any  sound  reason  why  the  earth's  axis, 
if  it  is  affected  at  all  by  this  operation,  should  not  make 
daily  a  complete  circle  of  nutation,  however  minute, 
rather  than  the  1-365  part  of  the  1-26,000  part  of  a  big 
circle?  Again,  the  earth  revolves  around  the  sun  in  365 
days,  presenting  the  equator  in  like  manner  to  the  sun's 
attractive  influence  at  every  angle  of  her  axial  inclination. 
Here  the  annual  cycle  of  causation  is  complete,  why 
should  not  its  cycle  of  effect  be  annually  complete  also? 
Why,  indeed,  should  26,000  complete  cycles  of  causation, 
for  no  intelligible  reason,  save  themselves  up  to  make 
one  big  circle  instead  of  26,000  sucessive  minute  ones,  and 
why,  indeed,  should  the  radius  of  that  peculiarly  gener- 
ated big  circle  be  so  amazingly  identical  with  the  earth 's 
axial  inclination  ?  What  would  you  say  of  a  man  who,  in 
cool  deliberation,  would  protest  that  9,490,000  of  our  days 
and  nights  (26,000  of  our  summers  and  winters)  should 
yield  us  a  single  day  of  daylight  13,000  years  long  and  a 
single  night  of  13,000  years?  Yet  thus,  in  effect,  is  how 
Newton  reasoned  in  this  case. 

THE  TRUE  CAUSE  OF  PRECESSION 

Every  action  has  its  equal  and  opposite  reaction. 
This  is  not  only  Newton's  second  law,  but  it  is  likewise 
the  fundamental  principle  of  the  gyroscope.  The  solar 
system,  therefore,  must,  of  necessity,  recoil  backward  as 
a  unit  by  way  of  compensating  for  its  general  forward 
gyration  around  its  own  axis,  the  sun.  The  next  ques- 
tions then  to  arise  are :  Does  the  solar  system  recoil  in  a 
straight  line,  or  in  a  curve?  Why?  and  In  what  kind  of  a 


THE  PRIME  RESULTANT  75 

curve  ?  To  begin  with,  in  order  that  the  system  may  re- 
coil at  all,  it  cannot  possibly  abide  in  one  place,  but  must 
keep  perpetually  on  the  move.  Nor  can  it  sail  away  in  a 
straight  line,  because,  by  premiss,  it  is  tethered  to  the  lo- 
cal centrum  or  Vertex  of  stellar  attractions,  hence  a  reen- 
tering  curve  must  consequently  result.  But  here,  again, 
we  are  confronted  with  the  circumstance  that  the  system 
is  falling  at  the  same  time,  hence  our  final  conclusion 
must  be  that  the  center  of  mass  of  our  system  is  pursuing 
a  sweeping  spiral  path,  inferentially  requiring  some  26, 
000  years  to  complete  a  single  coil  of  it. 

In  order  to  make  all  these  relations  perfectly  clear  in 
the  reader's  mind,  let  us,  for  the  time  being,  disregard  the 
falling  motion  of  the  sun  and  treat  his  path  as  a  simple 
closed  curve.  Imagine  then,  if  you  please,  an  immense 
sphere  suspended  in  space,  having  for  its  center  the  Ver- 
tex and  for  its  radius  the  stem  of  the  Prime  Resultant 
(that  is  to  say,  the  distance  between  the  Vertex  and  the 
sun's  center),  and  for  convenience  of  reference  we  shall 
call  it  the  GravispJiere.  For  reasons  previously  stated, 
let  us  picture  this  sphere  as  inverted,  with  its  south  pole 
at  the  top,  and  inscribed  on  it  an  Equator,  and  Arctic  and 
Antarctic  circles.  Transport  yourself  now,  in  spirit,  to 
the  Vertex  and,  from  it  look  up  at  our  descending  system 
and  take  note  of  its  motions,  imagining  yourself  to  con- 
tinue in  the  same  position  for  260  centuries.  This  is 
what  you  should  see :  first,  a  complete  revolution  of  the 
system  in  a  clockwise  direction  around  the  line  of  the 
grav- Antarctic  circle  which,  being  projected  against  the 
celestial  sphere,  would  describe  on  it  precisely  the  same 
sort  of  circle,  around  the  southern  pole  of  the  ecliptic, 
23y2°  in  radius;  second,  you  should  see  the  north  pole  of 
the  earth's  axis  constantly  turned  toward  you,  so  stead- 
ily, indeed,  that  were  that  axis  a  hollow  bore  you  could 
see  clear  through  it,  at  all  times,  to  the  background  of 
the  southern  sky  beyond ;  third,  you  should  see  the  earth 
rotate  on  its  axis  in  a  contra-clockwise  direction;  and, 
fourth,  you  should  see  all  the  planets  revolve  around  the 
sun,  and  the  moon  around  the  earth,  in  this  same  left- 
handed  manner.  (See  Fig.  3.) 


76  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 


THE  GRAVISPHERE 

EXPLANATION: — This  is  an  imaginary  figure  designed  to 
portray  the  relation  of  our  solar  system  to  the  universe  at 
large.  Observe  that  the  south  pole  is  placed  at  the  top;  this 
has  been  done  purposely  in  order  to  impress  the  lesson  that 
our  cosmic  fall  is  toward  the  north  celestial  pole.  It  has 
been  found  desirable,  for  the  sake  of  avoiding  confusion,  to 
represent  the  Gravisphere  as  stationary  and  the  orbit  of  the 
sun  (along  the  Antarctic  Circle)  as  closed;  but  the  reader 
should  conceive  of  the  whole  Sphere  as  falling  the  length  of 
its  own  diameter  (3,836,000,000,000)  in  the  period  of  some 
20,630  years.  The  arrow-heads  in  the  line  of  the  Circle 
indicate  the  direction  in  which  the  sun  is  moving;  but  were 
it  correctly  represented,  the  path  should  actually  appear  as 
a  deep  spiral  coil  with  a  sheer  fall  equal  to  its  horizontal 
circumference  and  a  total  length  of  6,800,000,000,000  miles. 
The  Prime  Resultant  is  shown  in  three  different  positions, 
but  in  reality  it  follows  the  sun's  movement,  describing  the 
cone  that  has  the  Antarctic  Circle  for  its  base.  The  earth 
is  drawn  (vastly  enlarged  in  proportion)  in  four  different 
quadrantal  positions,  6,452  years  apart,  in  order  to  exhibit 
the  nutation  of  its  axis  whereby  the  Circle  of  Precession  is 
produced.  In  parenthesis,  it  may  be  added  that  the  center 
of  the  Gravisphere  (the  Vertex)  does  not  fall  in  a  perfectly 
rectilinear  path,  but  in  a  curve  whose  radius  is  on  the  order 
of  10  light  years  and  period  of  revolution  1,900,000  years. 


THE  PRIME  EESULTANT 


77 


THE  GRAVISPHERE 

Fig.  3 


78  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

To  check  the  matter,  and  to  fix  these  relations  the 
more  firmly  in  the  memory,  change  your  position 
mentally  to  the  geographical  north  pole  of  our  earth  and 
look  down  northwardly  toward  the  Vertex ;  and,  since  the 
latter  is  only  a  blank,  fancy  a  great  star  there  placed,  and 
then  in  your  mind's  eye  watch  its  tracings  on  the  dome  of 
the  northern  sky.  What  do  you  see  now?  You  see  this 
fictitious  star,  projected,  describe  around  the  so-called 
north  pole  of  the  ecliptic,  in  a  contra-clockwise  direction, 
a  circle  23j^0  in  radius;  exactly  corresponding  with  the 
inclination  of  the  earth's  axis,  and  consuming  for  its 
execution  the  aforesaid  period  of  26,000  years. 

In  fine,  the  true  dynamical  pole  of  the  ecliptic  is  the 
Vertex,  but  this,  being  more  proximate  to  us  than  the 
celestial  sphere,  its  projection  upon  the  northern  sky  pro- 
duces, by  virtue  of  our  movement  in  a  great  circle,  the 
phenomenon  of  precession  which  we  are  now  discussing. 

In  order  that  the  Vertex  might  coincide  in  alignment 
with  the  celestial  pole  of  the  ecliptic,  it  would  have  to  be 
viewed  from  a  point  in  the  axis  of  the  Gravisphere,  a  posi- 
tion which  no  member  of  our  system,  of  course,  can  ever 
occupy. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  I  mean  to  imply  that  the 
stars  that  successively  mark  the  terrestrial  pole  as 
Polaris  does  now  (approximately),  are  posed  on  the  Arc- 
tic Circle  of  the  Gravisphere.  Far  from  it.  That  Circle 
is  merely  the  boundary  of  a  particular  cross  section  of  the 
inverted  cone  whose  apex  is  the  Vertex  and  whose  real 
base  rests  on  the  celestial  sphere,  which  is  to  say,  at  in- 
finity. A  star  at  any  distance,  in  the  line  of  the  cone's 
side,  would  appear  as  if  on  this  Circle. 

Let  it  now  be  recalled  that  the  sun's  orbit  along  the 
great  Antarctic  Circle  is  not  a  closed  curve,  seeing  that 
he  is  constantly  falling  Vertex-ward.  It  is  possible  to 
determine  how  fast  he  is  falling  and  to  state  that  in  26,000 
years,  or  one  circuit,  he  will  fall  about  double  the  distance 
of  the  Vertex,  describing  incidentally,  of  course,  a  great 
spiral  coil.  This,  however,  need  alarm  no  one,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  the  Vertex  is  a  kind  of  will-o  '-the- 
wisp.  You  cannot  imagine  a  point  in  space  where  a  body, 


THE  PRIME  RESULTANT  79 

if  there  placed,  will  not  be  gravitationally  directed  to- 
ward some  other  point  distant  from  it.  Our  Vertex  is 
merely  a  stepping  stone  to  our  exploration  of  the  infinities 
around  us.  The  rays  of  gravitation  pass  through  the  Ver- 
tex, but  they  do  not  stop  there.  Besides,  the  Vertex  is  a 
blank  spot  and  not  a  rock  on  which  our  ship  can  founder. 
There  is,  you  observe,  no  central  sun,  either  in  the 
center  of  the  sun's  orbit,  nor  even  at  the  Vertex.  Indeed, 
there  is  no  need  of  a  great  central  sun,  for  two  reasons ; 

(1)  because,  as  I  shall  show  later,  stars  are  limited  by 
nature  to  a  maximum  size,  just  like  men  or  animals ;  and 

(2)  if  stars  could  grow  to   any  magnitude  whatsoever, 
they  would  long  ago  have  put  an  end  to  Nature 's  plan. 

The  vernal  equinox  occurs  when  the  earth,  and  of 
course  the  sun,  are  on  the  exact  line  of  the  Antarctic 
Circle  of  the  Gravisphere,  the  sun  then  always  in  the 
rear.  At  one  position,  say  A,  the  sun  at  vernal  equinox 
would  be  projected  upon  the  sky  in  a  certain  direction, 
while,  at  B  it  would  be  projected  one  quadrant  to  the  west. 
To  an  observer  on  the  earth,  therefore,  viewing  the  sun  at 
the  time  of  the  vernal  equinox  in  successive  years,  the 
path  of  that  body  will  seem  to  be  toward  270°,  right  as- 
cension. Again,  the  declination  of  the  sun  will  likewise 
suffer  a  change  in  journeying  the  quadrant  from  A  to  B,  a 
change  which  can  be  resolved  into  two  factors,  namely; 
first,  an  uprighting  of  the  axis  to  the  extent  of  23%°  in 
one  direction;  and,  second,  a  tilting  of  the  axis  to  the 
same  amount  in  a  new  direction  at  right  angles  to  the  for- 
mer. The  net  effect  upon  the  apparent  movement  of  the 
sun  in  declination,  then,  will  be,  not  the  sum  of  23%°  plus 
23^>°  but  the  hypothenuse  of  the  right  angled  triangle 
two  of  whose  sides  are  equal  to  23j^  °  traced  on  the  celes- 
tial sphere.  Applying  the  appropriate  rule,  then,  we 
have: 


1/2X  (23^)  2  =  33.23 

That  is  to  say,  the  drift  of  the  sun  will  SEEM  to  anyone  not 
in  possession  of  the  key  to  be,  not  merely  to  right  ascen- 
sion 270°,  but  also  to  declination  +33°.23.  On  a  similar 
line  of  reasoning,  it  can  easily  be  seen  that  the  vertices  of 


80  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

preferential  motion  of  the  stars  should  appear  to  be  re- 
spectively in  r.  a.  90°,  dec.  11.75°,  and  r.  a.  270°,  dec. 
-11.75°,  showing  that  the  so-called  star  streams  are  clearly 
nothing  other  than  an  optical  illusion.  Now  compare 
these  results  with  those  derived  by  others  by  the  labori- 
ous and  conventional  methods  of  empirical  observation 
and  analysis.  I  quote  from  Doctor  W.  W.  Campbell's 
Stellar  Motions  (p.  147) : 

Below  are  solutions  for  the  apex  of  the  sun's  motion  and  for 
the  vertices  of  the  two  star  streams,  by  Kapteyn,  Eddington,  and 
Dyson;  and  for  the  positions  of  the  solar  apex  and  of  the  vertices 
of  Schwarzschild's  ellipsoid  of  preferential  motion,  by  Schwarz- 
schild,  Beljawsky  and  Rudolph. 

Apex  Vertex 

R.  A.  Dec.        R.  A.  Dec. 
Kapteyn- — Bradley  stars  91°     +13° 


Eddington — Groombridge  stars  266°  +31°  95 

Schwarzschild — Groombridge  stars      266  -(-33  9 

Dyson — Stars  of  large  proper  motion  281  +42 

Beljawsky — Porters  stars  281  +3^  86 

Eddington — Zodiacal  stars  109 

Rudolph — Bradley  stars  268  -{-26 


Means  272       +34        93       +12 

A  logarithmic  spiral  is  denned  as  one  that  intersects 
all  radiants  at  the  same  angle.  This  is  precisely  the  en- 
semble arrangement  we  should  expect  of  the  planets  in 
their  orbits  at  successive  instants  of  time,  if,  as  I  have 
been  arguing,  the  planets  are  truly  balancing  themselves 
as  a  composite  unit  on  the  pivot  of  their  lowest  center  of 
gravity.  Strangely  enough,  astronomers  have  lately 
shown  that  spiral  nebulae  (which  for  this  purpose  possess 
an  advantage  in  having  continuous  arms  to  guide  the  eye, 
whereas  a  system  like  ours  has  only  points)  conform  to 
this  very  shape !  I  would  ask  the  reader  to  pay  especial 
attention  to  this  peculiarity,  as  it  will  be  adverted  to  later 
in  an  even  more  important  connection. 

It  may  be  objected  by  some  of  my  readers  that  the 
axis  of  the  sun,  Jupiter,  and  Uranus  are  not  at  all  in 
alignment  with  the  earth's  axis.  The  objection,  on  the 


THE  PKIME  RESULTANT  81 

face  of  it,  is  sound  and  legitimate,  and  deserves  a  cate- 
gorical answer.  Let  it  be  premised,  however,  that  the 
only  planet  enough  like  our  earth  in  constitution  to  serve 
for  a  criterion,  to-wit,  Mars,  points  its  axis  so  nearly  like 
the  earth's  that  Doctor  Lowell,  late  director  of  the  Flag- 
staff Observatory,  in  a  bulletin  issued  shortly  before  his 
death,  asserted  that  its  inclination  is  identically  that  of 
the  earth's.  Why  this  remarkable  coincidence?  Shall 
it  be  waved  aside  as  immaterial?  Moreover,  Saturn's 
axial  inclination  is  given  by  Flammarion  as  25°  42'  as 
against  23°  27'  for  the  earth.  Close  enough  surely  to 
constitute  a  prima- facie  case !  As  far  as  the  definite  ex- 
ceptions of  the  sun  and  Jupiter  are  concerned,  I  might 
put  astronomers  in  general  on  the  defensive  by  saying, 
truthfully,  that  Newtonian  theory  doesn't  account  for  the 
direction  of  even  a  single  one  of  these  axes,  let  alone  for 
these  three  amazing  coincidences.  But  I  will  not  thus 
evade  the  question. 

When  you  look  at  the  earth,  you  see  its  crust ;  when 
you  look  at  the  sun  or  Jupiter,  you  see  only  their  atmos- 
pheres, or,  at  least,  fluid  envelopes.  You  cannot,  there- 
fore, predicate  with  the  same  positiveness  with  respect 
to  the  hidden  axial  inclinations  of  these  as  you  can  with 
regard  to  the  plainly  visible  ones  of  Mars  and  the  earth. 
In  the  case  of  the  earth,  its  interior  (at  least  relatively  to 
the  interiors  of  Jupiter  and  the  sun)  is  solidified,  and  in- 
capable of  free  movement,  so  that  her  ballasting  adjust- 
ments are  confined,  perhaps  exclusively,  to  the  surface, 
where  they  can  be  duly  interpreted ;  whereas  the  sun,  and, 
in  all  likelihood,  Jupiter,  also,  are  molten  throughout,  so 
that  their  ballasting  process  may  go  on  inside,  secretly, 
leaving  their  mobile  surfaces  freely  open  to  centrifugal 
balancing.  The  force  of  this  explanation  is  strengthened 
by  the  established  fact  that  both  these  huge  bodies  exhibit 
the  singular  phenomenon  of  "equatorial  acceleration"; 
that  is,  the  rotation  of  neither  is  uniform  from  pole  to 
pole,  but  is  faster  at  the  equator  than  in  the  latitudes. 

You  may  ask  me  why  the  solar  system  rotates  on  its 
axis  from  west  to  east  instead  of  just  the  reverse.  I  do 
not  know,  any  more  than  I  know  why  the  water  in  the 


82  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

basin  sometimes  turns  toward  the  right,  and  again  toward 
the  left.  All  I  can  say  is,  it  had  to  move  one  way  or  the 
other,  and  then  stick  to  that  way.  The  die  could  have 
been  cast  by  the  first  comet  that  crossed  the  nebular  field, 
just  as  the  mere  touch  of  the  tip  of  your  finger  on  the 
water  in  the  basin  will  determine  the  direction  of  its  ro- 
tation. 

Again,  you  may  wish  to  know  why  the  ecliptic  and  the 
plane  of  the  Antarctic  Circle  of  the  Gravisphere  corre- 
spond, instead  of  the  ecliptic  being  tangent  to  the  Sphere. 
I  appeal  again  to  the  surface  of  the  basin  of  water  for  the 
explanation.  You  have  observed,  have  you  not,  how  the 
surface  dishes  in,  forming,  as  it  were,  a  saucer?  This, 
obviously,  is  an  effect  of  the  centrifugal  force  generated 
by  the  principle  of  balance,  and  I  assume  that  the  same 
principle  holds  good  in  the  case  under  discussion.  At 
any  rate,  the  ecliptic  does  not  exactly  correspond  with  the 
plane  of  the  circle,  though  the  "invariable  plane"  of  the 
system  perhaps  does. 

It  would  seem  to  follow  that,  inasmuch  as  the  rota- 
tions in  our  system  are  accelerating,  the  time  periods  are 
intrinsically  shortening.  On  the  other  hand,  however, 
the  faster  bodies  are  whirled  the  farther  out  they  fly.  For 
reasons  which  seem  to  me  convincing,  I  believe  that  the 
earth  is  receding  from  the  sun  by  infinitesimal  degrees, 
and  also  that  the  year  is  shortening  as  well.  This,  how- 
ever, is  needlessly  speculative  and  I  will  pursue  the  idea 
no  further.  The  thing  of  importance  is,  that  we  have 
ferreted  out  the  hidden  force  that  ivhirls  the  planets 
around  and  counteracts  the  centripetal  attraction. 


IV 

THE  TIDES 

THE  ebb  and  flow  of  the  tides  is  altogether  too  con- 
spicuous and  important  a  phenomenon  of  nature  to 
have  escaped  the  notice  and  observation  of  the  an- 
cients, and  long  before  Newton's  day  it  was  shrewdly  sus- 
pected that  some  sort  of  causal  relationship  subsists  be- 
tween the  movements  of  the  moon  on  the  one  hand  and 
the  behavior  of  the  tides  on  the  other.  By  the  time  New- 
ton arrived  on  the  scene,  this  suspicion  had  developed  in- 
to a  general  scientific  conviction,  although  no  explanation 
had  yet  been  suggested.  The  circumstantial  evidence  on 
which  this  conviction  is  founded  may  be  briefly  summed 
up  as  follows : 

Besides  her  apparent  diurnal  revolution  around  the 
earth  from  east  to  west,  the  moon  has  a  real  motion 
around  our  planet  in  the  opposite  direction,  from  west  to 
east,  a  circuit  which  she  completes  (from  new  moon  to 
new  moon)  in  about  29%  days.  On  account  of  this  latter 
motion,  the  moon's  time  of  rising  is  delayed  from  one 
day  to  another  by  an  average  period  of  51  minutes.  Now, 
the  strange  part  of  it  is  that  high  tide  arrives  at  any 
given  port  by  this  same  interval  of  51  minutes  later  each 
successive  day,  and  the  natural  inference  arises  that  the 
moon  is  somehow  the  cause,  and  the  tide  the  effect.  But 
the  coincidence  extends  even  farther,  for  it  has  been 
demonstrated  that  the  height  of  the  tide  varies  rhythmi- 
cally with  the  moon's  changes  of  phase,  being  highest  at 
the  syzygies  and  lowest  at  quadrature.  Furthermore, 
the  tide  is  higher  by  about  20  per  cent  when  the  moon  is 
at  perigee  than  when  at  apogee. 


84  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

Newton  himself  was  so  completely  persuaded  by  this 
evidence  of  the  moon's  being  the  mother  of  the  tides  that 
it  never  occurred  to  him,  nor  indeed  does  it  seem  to  have 
occurred  to  anyone  but  the  present  writer,  to  cast  about 
for  any  other  solution.  That  a  new  solution  is  impera- 
tively demanded,  however,  is  rendered  certain  by  the  can- 
did confessions  of  the  Newtonians  themselves,  who,  after 
two  centuries  of  ceaseless  striving  to  fit  their  theory  to 
nature,  have  finally  agreed  among  themselves  that  the 
two  are  utterly  irreconcilable.  Professional  astronomers, 
of  course,  all  know  this  without  needing  to  be  told ;  but  in 
order  to  satisfy  the  lay  reader  that  such  is  really  the  case 
let  me  quote  these  additional  passages  from  Young  and 
Darwin  (See  also  p.  10  ante) : 

The  establishment  of  a  port  is  the  mean  interval  between  the 
time  of  high  water  at  that  port  and  the  next  preceding  passage  of 
the  moon  across  that  meridian.  At  New  York,  for  instance,  this 
establishment  is  8h.  13111.  although  the  actual  interval  varies  about 
22  minutes  on  each  side  of  the  mean  at  different  times  of  the 
month.  (Genl.  Astr.,  p.  403) 


It  is  interesting  to  reflect  that  our  tides  today  depend  even 
more  on  what  occurred  yesterday  or  the  day  before  in  the 
Southern  Pacific  and  Indian  oceans  than  on  the  direct  action  of 
the  moon  today  *  *  *  *  the  problem  is  one  of  insoluble  mystery. 
(Darwin's  The  Tides,  p.  188). 


In  fact,  the  evanescence  of  the  diurnal  inequality  is  not  much 
closer  to  the  truth  than  the  large  inequality  predicted  by  the 
equilibrium  theory;  and  both  theories  must  be  abandoned  as  satis- 
factory explanations  of  "the  true  condition  of  affairs.  (Ibid.,  p. 
180.) 

It  is  but  one  of  many  glaring  inconsistencies  of 
modern  astronomical  science  that,  in  spite  of  these  and  an 
unlimited  number  of  other  such  damning  admissions  of 
the  objective  falsity  of  Newton's  tidal  theory,  our  scien- 
tists nevertheless  continue  to  teach  it  in  the  schools  as 
one  of  the  great  scientific  gospels.  All  the  so-called 


THE  TIDES  85 


modern  cosmogonies — the  Planetesimal  hypothesis  of 
Chamberlin  and  Moulton,  Arrhenius'  theory  of  Light- 
Pressure,  See 's  hypothesis  of  a  Kesisting  Medium,  and 
the  rest, — are  based  in  whole  or  in  part  on  this  admittedly 
false  doctrine.  Indeed,  in  the  very  book  in  which  he 
gave  utterance  to  the  paragraphs  just  quoted,  Darwin 
goes  on  and  elaborates  his  grotesque  theory  of  Tidal 
Evolution,  of  which,  in  concluding,  he  himself  speaks  in 
these  slighting  words  (The  Tides,  p.  284) : 

There  is  nothing  to  tell  us  whether  this  theory  affords  the 
true  explanation  of  the  birth  of  the  moon,  and  I  say  that  it  is 
only  a  wild  speculation  incapable  of  verification. 

To  cap  the  climax  of  absurdity,  the  article  Tides  in 
the  new  Britannica  was  contributed  by  this  same  Darwin, 
and  it  is  given  up  almost  wholly  to  the  exploitation  of  this 
"wild  speculation  incapable  of  verification"  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  virtually  all  other  pertinent  matter !  What  a 
travesty  is  this  on  science !  Here  we  have,  in  chronologi- 
cal order:  first,  Newton 's  theory ;  second,  universal  ad- 
mission of  its  unsoundness ;  third,  a  complicated  elabora- 
tion of  the  theory  by  one  who  had  already  condemned  it ; 
fourth,  condemnation  of  the  elaboration  by  its  own 
author ;  and  fifth,  the  memorializing  of  the  author  and 
his  "wild  speculation "  in  the  chief  publication  of  the 
world ! 

NEWTON'S  THEORY  OF  THE  TIDES 

Inasmuch  as  the  tides  rise  it  was  natural  enough  for 
Newton  to  surmise,  in  the  first  instance,  that  they  are 
caused  by  gravitation  lifting  the  waters  away  from  the 
earth  proper ;  and  inasmuch,  also,  as  there  exists  a  coin- 
cidence between  the  moon 's  schedule  and  the  schedule  of 
the  tides,  it  was  not  less  natural  for  him  to  infer,  at  least 
provisionally,  that  the  moon,  rather  than  the  sun,  is  the 
primary  tidal  force.  Accordingly,  he  conceived  the  moon 
as  drawing  the  oceans  immediately  under  her  away  from 
the  earth 's  solid  part  or  kernel,  and  the  kernel  in  turn 
away  from  the  nether  oceans,  thus  causing  the  double 
tide  that  observation  reveals  to  exist. 


86  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

When  he  came  to  compute  the  relative  attractions  of 
the  sun  and  moon,  however,  he  found  that,  after  making 
due  allowance  for  their  respective  masses  and  distances, 
the  attraction  of  the  former  upon  our  earth  is  180  times 
stronger  than  the  lunar  attraction.  Such  a  result  was,  of 
course,  incompatible  with  his  primary  hypothesis  that  the 
moon  is  the  greater  tidal  force  (a  hypothesis  which,  alas ! 
he  took  to  be  axiomatic),  so  he  cast  about  in  his  mind  for 
a  way  to  reverse  the  order  of  their  potency,  and  to  twist 
things  to  fit. 

Continuing  his  argument,  he  reasoned  that  the 
waters  that  actually  compose  the  tidal  hillock  are  to  be 
differentiated  from  the  level  mass  of  the  ocean  in  this, 
that  they  are  the  part  displaced,  having  to  be  drawn  in 
from  the  surrounding  regions.  Such  being  the  case,  the 
attraction  of  the  moon  which  drew  them  in  could  not  have 
been,  at  first,  vertically  exerted  upon  them,  but  obliquely, 
and  the  same  reasoning  applied  equally  to  the  sun 's  at- 
traction. It  consequently  followed,  mathematically,  that 
the  tidal  forces  vary,  not  as  the  inverse  squares  (the  law 
of  gravitation)  of  the  distances  of  the  sun  and  the  moon, 
but  as  their  inverse  cubes.  Computing  anew  on  this 
basis  Newton  made  out  the  moon  to  be  about  four  times 
stronger,  tidally,  than  the  sun,  instead  of  180  times 
feebler. 

Observation,  from  Newton's  day  to  this,  has  failed  to 
reveal  any  signs  of  a  separate  double  solar  tide,  which 
theory  indicates  should  exist.  According  to  modern  com- 
putations, the  ratio  of  the  two  tidal  forces  is,  roughly,  two 
to  one  instead  of  four  to  one ;  hence  the  academical  argu- 
ment for  the  visibility  of  such  a  separate  solar  tide  looms 
stronger  to-day  than  it  appeared  in  Newton 's  age.  He 
sought  to  explain  the  physical  absence  of  this  tide  by 
postulating  a  merger  of  the  solar  with  the  lunar  tide,  at 
one  time  augmenting  and  at  another  offsetting  it,  ac- 
cording to  the  relative  angular  positions  of  the  two  bodies 
with  respect  to  the  earth. 

Now,  although  it  is  quite  true  that  there  is  a  startling 
coincidence  between  the  measure  of  the  daily  advance  of 
the  moon  eastwardly  in  her  orbit  and  the  interval  between 


THE  TIDES  87 


the  arrival  of  successive  high  tides  at  any  given  port — 
51  minutes  in  both  cases — there  is  a  no  less  startling 
discrepancy  as  to  the  meridianal  places  of  the  moon  and 
high  tide  at  any  given  moment.  According  to  the  main 
hypothesis,  high  tide  should  occur  immediately  under 
the  moon ;  for  instance,  when  the  moon  is  on  the  meridian 
of  New  York,  high  tide  should  then  be  filling  that  city's 
harbor.  Instead}  we  find  that  when  this  latter  event 
occurs  the  moon  has  preceded  it  by  about  eight  hours, 
and  is  already  some  thirty  degrees  below  New  York's 
western  horizon !  Why  this  great  hiatus  between  cause 
and  effect?  Newton  claims  it  is  due  to  the  "dragging" 
of  the  tides,  arising  from  the  presence  of  interposing 
land  masses,  friction  on  the  ocean  beds,  and  the  inertia  of 
the  water  itself. 

The  assumption  that  the  moon  draws  the  oceans 
away  from  the  earth's  solid  part  clearly  implies  a  superi- 
ority in  the  degree  of  the  intensity  of  her  attraction 
upon  the  oceans,  as  contrasted  with  her  pull  on  the  kernel, 
and  a  relative  holding  back  of  the  latter.  Newton  knew 
as  certainly,  although  not  so  accurately  as  we,  that  the 
density  of  the  earth's  solid  part  is  several  times  greater 
than  that  of  water  and  that,  by  the  strict  law  of  mass,  the 
kernel,  notwithstanding  its  slightly  greater  distance  from 
the  moon,  should  be  attracted  much  more  powerfully  than 
the  oceans  in  front  of  it.  He  knew,  also,  that  the  resul- 
tant effect  of  such  action  could  only  be  to  shallow  the 
seas  on  the  earth's  moonward  side  instead  of  deepening 
(raising)  them.  This  conclusion,  however,  did  not  suit 
Newton 's  preconceptions  in  the  least,  for  it  meant  re- 
tracting his  previous  reasoning,  restoring  the  original,  to 
him  obnoxious,  ratio  of  180  to  1  in  the  sun's  favor,  and  in 
short,  relinquishing  altogether  his  cherished  theory  of  the 
lunar  causation  of  tides.  Unequal  to  this  sacrifice,  he 
sought  away  out  of  the  dilemma  by  tampering  again 
with  his  own  law  of  gravitation.  As  one  lie  leads  to 
another,  so  one  basic  misinterpretation  of  nature's  laws 
leads  to  an  endless  chain  of  absurdities.  He  had  already 
dared  to  distort  the  second  clause  of  the  law  to  read  that 
tidal  forces  vary,  not  as  the  inverse  squares  but  as  the 


88  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

inverse  cubes  of  the  distances,  hence  he  now  felt  driven, 
in  the  interest  of  consistency,  to  go  on  and  alter  the  first 
clause  to  match  its  changed  companion.  Accordingly,  he 
made  that  to  read,  that  gravitational  attraction,  when 
operating  as  a  tidal  force,  disregards  differentiations  of 
density !  In  support  of  this  new  absurdity,  he  introduced 
what  is  known  as  the  vacuum-tube  experiment  (to  be  dis- 
cussed later),  from  which  he  drew  the  fallacious  inference 
that,  inasmuch  as  all  objects,  regardless  of  density,  fall 
in  vacuo  with  the  same  rapidity,  the  law  of  equilibrium 
does  not  apply  to  them  or,  by  analogy,  to  cosmic  bodies  in 
general. 

Newton's  next  step  was  to  invent  some  method, 
favorable  to  his  theory,  for  computing  the  tidal  heights. 
Making  use  of  his  rule  of  inverse  cubes,  he  ascertained 
the  tidal  force  of  the  moon  to  be  1-2,871,400  of  the 
earth's  gravity  and  that  of  the  sun,  1-12,868,200.  (Young 
gives  1-8,640,000  and  1-19,600,000  respectively)  The  ques- 
tion with  him. was:  How  are  these  quantities  to  be  trans- 
lated into  terms  of  tidal  height  so  as  to  obtain  plausible 
results  1 

It  was  well-known  to  the  generation  before  Newton 
that  the  figure  of  the  earth  is  not  that  of  a  sphere,  but  of 
an  oblate  spheroid,  and  her  equatorial  ring  seems  always 
to  have  been  assumed,  as  a  plain  matter  of  course,  to  be 
the  running  effect  of  the  centrifugal  force  of  her  axial 
rotation.  This  view  was  blindly  adopted  by  Newton  him- 
self, and  is  the  one  universally  acquiesced  in  to-day  by  all 
recognized  scientists.  Some  skeptical  lay  readers  may  in- 
fer that  the  ring,  to  some  extent  at  least,  may  be  the  cum- 
ulative effect  of  the  long  past,  but  let  me  assure  him 
solemnly  that  this  is  not  the  orthodox  interpretation.  In 
the  time  of  Newton  the  thickness  of  this  ring  at  the  equa- 
tor was  supposed  to  be  85,472  Paris  feet  (a  Paris  foot  be- 
ing about  1-15  longer  than  the  American  standard),  but 
the  modern  estimate  is  only  13-^  miles  (71,280  feet). 

By  a  combined  process  of  pendulum  experimenting 
and  computation,  Newton  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that 
the  centrifugal  force  of  the  earth's  rotation  at  the  equator 
serves  to  lighten  any  given  body  at  that  place  by  1-289  of 


THE  TIDES  89 


the  weight  it  would  have  were  the  globe  at  rest ;  that  is  to 
say,  the  centrifugal  force  there  is  equal  to  1-289  of 
gravity.  Continuing,  he  reasoned  that,  inasmuch  as  this 
force,  being  equal  to  1-289  of  gravity,  sufficies  to  elevate 
her  equatorial  regions  by  85,472  feet,  the  attraction  of 
the  sun,  which  is  1-12,868,220  the  strength  of  gravity, 
should  be  able  to  elevate  those  regions  by  289  times 
85,472  feet,  or  24,701,408  feet  divided  by  12,868,200,  or 
very  nearly  2  feet.  But  let  me  quote  his  own  words 
(Book  III,  Prop.  36,  Principia) : 

Cor.  Since  the  centrifugal  force  of  the  parts  of  the  earth, 
arising  from  the  earth's  diurnal  motion,  which  is  to  the  force  of 
gravity  as  I  to  289,  raises  the  waters  under  the  equator  to  a  height 
exceeding  that  under  the  poles  by  85,472  Paris  feet,  as  above,  in 
prop.  19,  the  force  of  the  sun,  which  we  have  now  shewed  to  be 
to  the  force  of  gravity  as  i  to  12,868,200,  and  therefore  is  to  that 
centrifugal  force  as  289  to  12,868,200,  or  as  I  to  44,527,  will  be 
able  to  raise  the  waters  in  the  places  directly  under  and  directly 
opposed  to  the  sun  to  a  height  exceeding  that  in  the  places  which 
are  90  degrees  removed  from  the  sun  only  by  one  Paris  foot  and 
11-1/30  inches,  for  this  measure  is  to  the  measure  of  85,472  feet 
as  i  1044,517. 

At  this  stage  Newton  appears  to  have  rested  his  case, 
but  not  so  his  successors,  who  have  had  the  desperate 
courage  to  pursue  his  fatal  logic  further,  even  to  the 
bitter  extreme  of  swallowing  the  inescapable  reductio  ad 
absurdum  that  neither  the  moon  or  the  sun  is  the  dynami- 
cal cause  of  the  tides,  but  that  the  centrifugal  force  of  the 
earth's  axial  rotation  is!  Nor,  granting  the  premises 
laid  down  by  their  leader,  can  one  find  any  fault  with  their 
logic,  as  such.  Suppose,  say  they,  that  the  earth  did  not 
rotate  on  its  axis  at  all,  then  there  would  be  no  centrifugal 
force  and,  by  the  same  token,  there  could  be  no  equatorial 
ring  and,  incidentally,  no  tide.  Test  the  matter  for  your- 
self: Substitute  in  the  Corollary  zero  wherever  the 
quantity  85,472  feet  appears  and  you  will  find  that, 
no  matter  how  stupendous  the  tidal  forces  of  the  sun  and 
moon  might  nominally  figure  out,  Newton's  method  of 
computing  would,  did  the  planet  not  rotate,  inevitably 
reduce  them  all  to  nothing.  Here  is  what  no  less  a  person- 
age than  the  late  lamented  Sir  Robert  Stawell  Ball,  the 


90  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

most  famous  English-speaking  astronomer  of  our  day, 
says  on  this  subject  (Story  of  the  Heavens,  p.  539) : 

The  tides  are,  however,  doing  work  of  one  kind  or  another. 
A  tide  in  a  river  estuary  will  sometimes  scour  away  a  bank  and 
carry  its  materials  elsewhere.  We  have  here  work  done  and  en- 
ergy consumed,  just  as  much  as  if  the  same  task  had  been  accom- 
plished by  engineers  directing  the  powerful  arms  and  navies.  We 
know  that  work  cannot  be  done  without  the  consumption  of  en- 
ergy in  some  of  its  forms ;  whence,  then,  comes  the  energy  which 
supplies  the  power  of  the  tides?  At  a  first  glance,  the  answer  to 
this  question  seems  a  very  obvious  one.  Have  we  not  said  that 
the  tides  are  caused  by  the  moon?  And  must  not  the  energy, 
therefore,  be  derived  from  the  moon?  This  seems  plain  enough, 
but,  unfortunately  it  is  not  true.  It  is  one  of  those  cases,  by  no 
means  infrequent  in  Dynamics,  where  the  truth  is  widely  different 
from  that  which  seems  to  be  the  case.  An  illustration,  perhaps, 
will  make  the  matter  clearer.  When  a  rifle  is  fired,  it  is  the  finger 
of  the  rifleman  that  pulls  the  trigger ;  but  are  we,  then,  to  say  that 
the  energy  by  which  the  bullet  has  been  driven  off  has  been  sup- 
plied by  the  rifleman  ?  Certainly  not ;  the  energy  is,  of  course, 
due  to  the  gunpowder,  and  all  the  rifleman  did  was  to  provide  the 
means  by  which  the  energy  stored  up  in  the  powder  could  be  lib- 
erated. To  a  certain  extent  we  may  compare  this  with  the  tidal 
problem;  the  tides  raised  by  the  moon  are  the  originating  cause 
whereby  a  certain  store  of  energy  is  drawn  upon  and  applied  to 
do  such  work  as  the  tides  are  competent  to  perform.  This  store 
of  energy,  strange  to  say,  does  not  lie  in  the  moon;  it  is  in  the 
earth  itself.  Indeed  it  is  extremely  remarkable  that  the  moon 
actually  gains  energy  from  the  tides  by  itself  absorbing  some  of 
the  store  which  exists  in  the  earth.  This  is  not  put  forward  as  an 
obvious  result,  it  depends  upon  a  refined  dynamical  theorem. 

•  We  must  clearly  understand  the  nature  of  this  mighty  store 
of  energy  from  which  the  tides  draw  their  power  and  on  which 
the  moon  is  permitted  to  make  large  and  incessant  drafts.  Let  us 
see  in  what  sense  the  earth  is  said  to  possess  a  store  of  energy. 
We  know  that  the  earth  rotates  on  its  axis  once  every  day.  It 
is  this  rotation  which  is  the  source  of  the  energy.  Let  us  com- 
pare the  rotation  of  the  earth  with  the  rotation  of  the  fly-wheel 
belonging  to  a  steam  engine.  The  rotation  of  the  fly-wheel  is 
really  a  reservoir,  into  which  the  engine  pours  energy  at  each 
stroke  of  the  piston.  The  various  machines  in  the  mill,  worked 
by  the  engine,  merely  draw  upon  the  store  of  the  energy  accumu- 
lated in  the  fly-wheel.  The  earth  may  be  likened  to  a  gigantic  fly- 
wheel detached  from  the  engine  though  still  connected  with  the 
machines  in  the  mill.  From  its  stupendous  dimensions  and  from 
its  rapid  velocity,  that  great  fly-wheel  possesses  an  enormous 
store  of  energy  which  must  be  expended  before  the  fly-wheel 


THE  TIDES  91 


comes  to  rest.  Hence  it  is  that,  though  the  tides  are  caused  by  the 
moon,  yet  the  energy  they  require  is  obtained  by  simply  appro- 
priating some  of  the  vast  supply  available  from  the  rotation  of  the 
earth. 

It  is  quite  true  that  many  astronomers,  without,  how- 
ever, making  any  pretense  of  logical  demonstration, 
hypothesize  the  existence  of  a  statical  tide,  that  is  to  say, 
a  tide  on  a  non-rotating  body.  Standing  by  itself,  this  is 
an  eminently  sensible  idea ;  but,  taken  in  connection  with 
Newton's  process  of  computing  it,  it  is  a  wholly  unwar- 
ranted assumption.  Besides,  does  not  Young  say,  "  In 
fact  the  statical  theory  becomes  utterly  unsatisfactory  in 
regard  to  what  actually  takes  place ' '  I 

Boiled  down  to  its  dregs,  then,  this  is  Newton's  Tidal 
Theory : 

1.  The  moon  is  the  primary  cause  of  the  tides,  and 
the  sun  the  secondary. 

2.  The  actual,  or  dynamical,  cause  of  the  tides  is, 
nevertheless,  neither  sun  nor  moon,  but  the  centrifugal 
force  of  the  earth 's  axial  rotation.    In  fact,  the  moon  even 
feeds  upon  the  energy  of  this  rotation. 

3.  The  elevation  known  as  the  earth's  equatorial 
protuberance  is  the  running  effect  of  that  centrifugal 
force. 

4.  The  tides  are  likewise  the  running  effect  of  this 
same  centrifugal  force. 

5.  This  centrifugal  force  exists  of  itself  without 
any  pre-existing  cause. 

6.  There  is  no  way  by  which  this  force  is  replen- 
ished. The  earth  is  on  the  order  of  "a  fly-wheel  detached 
from  the  engine,"  only  that,  in  the  earth's  case,  there 
never  was  any  engine  so  far  as  we  know. 

7.  To  sustain  in  place  the  equatorial  ring,  this 
centrifugal  force  continuously  expends  out  of  its  stored 
energy  1-289  of  the  power  of  gravity,  and,  to  produce 
the  lunar  tides,  289-2,811,400  of  gravity. 


92  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

8.  Notwithstanding    this  lack  of  an    engine  and 
these  dissipations  of  energy,  the  centrifugal  force  re- 
mains intact  forever. 

9.  The  explanation  of  this  mystery  is  that  the 
centrifugal  force  is  persistent  in  character,  this  word 
having  been  suggested  by  Spencer  as  an  improvement  on 
Newton's  word  inertial.    The  discovery  of  this  synonym 
is  esteemed  one  of  the  great  triumphs  of  cosmic  science. 

10.  The  moon's  tidal  force  is  employed  in  dragging 
the  tides  from  where  the  major  premiss  of  the  theory 
says  they  are  generated  and  ought  to  appear,  to  exactly 
those  places  where  the  same  theory  says  they  are  out  of 
place  and  ought  not  to  be. 

11.  The  theory  is  based  on  the  law  of  gravitation  by 
converting  the  clause  that  reads  "  varies  directly  as  the 
product  of  their  masses"  into  "varies  regardless  of  their 
densities,"  and  the  clause  "inversely  as  the  squares  of 
their  distances,"  into  "inversely  as  the  cubes  of  their 
distances." 

12.  It  denies  the  law  and  principle  of  equilibrium  in 
its  application  to  cosmic  bodies. 

13.  Weighed  by  the  physical  facts  "  it  is  nearly  as 
much  wrong  as  possible." 

14.  "It  is  one  of  the  most  well-attested  facts  of 
human  knowledge. ' ' 

NEWTON'S  THEORY  CRITICISED 

Since  the  death  of  Newton  in  1727,  the  accumulation 
of  scientific  data  has  proceeded  with  Brobdignagian 
strides,  and  this  is  true  of  astronomy  no  less  than  of  the 
other  physical  sciences.  Linnaeus,  the  father  of  modern 
botany,  was  only  twenty  when  Newton  died ;  Dalton,  the 
originator  of  atomic  chemistry,  was  not  born  until  nearly 
forty  years  later,  1766;  Cuvier,  the  founder  of  sys- 
tematic zoology,  in  1769 ;  Charles  Darwin,  in  1809.  These 
celebrated  names  imply  that  there  is  more  for  man  to  do 


THE  TIDES  93 


than  merely  to  acquire  stores  of  isolated  items  of  infor- 
mation ;  they  connote  classification  and  generalization  of 
these  data  into  systems  that  not  only  broaden  our  con- 
cepts, but  supply  keys  to  much  that  remains  unknown. 

Now,  if  the  fundamental  truths  were  the  first  to  come 
into  our  knowledge,  the  building  up  of  a  science  would  be 
a  comparatively  simple  matter.  But  they  by  no  means  do 
so.  Even  so,  little  harm  would  come  of  it,  were  it  not  for 
the  proneness  of  all  of  us  to  think  and  act  mechanically, 
along  conventional  lines,  and  to  look  with  disfavor  and 
often  with  contempt  on  the  "  crank "  who  presumes  to  set 
his  opinions  up  against  those  of  the  reactionary  majority. 
Since  Newton's  day,  numerous  such  fundamental  truths 
in  astronomy  have  come  to  light  that  our  scientists  have 
been  treating  as  minor  and  tacking  here  and  there  onto 
the  most  convenient  niches  in  the  superstructure,  instead 
of  courageously  razing,  as  they  should,  the  ramshackle 
structure  to  the  bed  rock  and  rebuilding  solidly  with  free 
hand  and  fresh  initative. 

Who  among  us,  I  ask,  gifted  with  ordinary  intelli- 
gence, a  heart  of  perseverence,  sufficient  leisure,  an  over- 
powering love  for  and  interest  in  the  subject,  and  means 
of  access  to  the  great  stores  of  modern  data,  should  not 
be  capable  of  constructing  de  novo  a  better  system  of 
cosmology  than  Newton  or  any  other  man  or  genius  could 
be  expected  to  do  in  a  day  when  such  basic  indispensable 
truths  as  the  following  were  unknown  and  unsuspected! 

1.  The  age  of  the  earth.  Newton  conceived  it  as 
especially  created  for  man  only  6000  years  ago,  and  that, 
in  another  paltry  millennium  or  so,  it  is  doomed  to  perish 
in  flame  and  ashes.  This  notion  of  the  earth's  transiency 
narrowed  his  outlook  on  the  greater  universe  most 
pathetically,  insomuch  that,  in  all  his  deliberations,  he 
overlooked  altogether  the  relations  of  the  solar  system 
to  the  stars,  and  treated  it  as  a  universe  unto  itself.  (2) 
He  did  not  know  of  the  sun's  motion,  or  that  the  stars 
move  in  regular  courses.  (3)  He  took  no  account  of  the 
greatest  dynamical  factor  in  nature,  namely,  the  com- 
posite of  the  stellar  attractions.  (4)  He  never  heard  of 


94  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

the  existence  of  nebulae,  for  these  were  not  discovered  by 
Sir  Wm.  Herschel  until  two  score  years  after  Newton's 
death,  hence  the  characteristic  forms  of  these  wonderful 
objects  carried  no  suggestion  to  him.  (5)  He  knew  of 
the  existence  of  only  six  great  planets.  Had  he  known  of 
the  asteroids,  he  might  have  thought  twice  before  predi- 
cating divine  agency  to  set  these,  like  the  great  planets, 
in  what  he  conceived  to  be  miraculous  and  studied  motion. 
(6)  He  knew  of  the  secular  acceleration  of  the  moon, 
but  he  did  not  foresee  that  mathematics  alone  would 
never  solve  it.  (7)  The  problem  of  the  origin  of  the 
sun 's  heat  troubled  him  not,  for  to  him  it  was  transient  as 
the  earth.  (8)  He  had  no  ideas  whatever  about  the 
genesis  of  new  stars,  or  about  their  variability.  (9)  The 
use  of  steam  as  a  source  of  mechanical  power  was  un- 
known, and,  of  course,  so  was  the  mechanical  theory  of 
heat  as  well.  (10)  Spectrum  analysis  had"  not  yet 
demonstrated  that  the  sun  and  stars  are  essentially  of  the 
same  chemical  composition  as  our  base  earth.  (11) 
Finally,  Newton  lacked  the  advantage  we  possess  of 
factual  knowledge  that  his  tidal  theory  is  all  wrong.  Had 
he  had  this  knowledge  he  might  have  taken  a  second 
thought  and,  retracing  his  steps,  hit  upon  the  true  solu- 
tion. After  severally  weighing  this  formidable  array  of 
his  handicaps,  ask  yourself  whether  the  presumption 
should  be  in  favor  of,  or  against,  Newton's  theory  of  tides 
or,  for  that  matter,  any  of  his  theories,  and  what  should 
be  our  duty  in  the  premises  f 

It  is  curious  that  our  Newtonian  friends,  who  lay 
such  great  store  upon  the  value  of  the  concordance  of 
moon  and  tide  in  the  single  particular  that  each  has  the 
same  habit  of  arriving  at  any  given  port  51  minutes  later 
each  succeeding  day,  pedal  most  softly  on  the  dissonance 
between  the  meridianal  places  where  these  phenomena 
respectively  appear  at  the  same  instant  of  time.  Ac- 
cording to  Newton's  main  hypothesis,  the  tidal  crest 
should  exist  at  all  times  nowhere  but  exactly  beneath  the 
moon.  Were  this,  indeed,  the  case,  the  causal  relation- 
ship between  moon  and  tide  would  be  all  but  conclusively 
demonstrated.  But  the  uncompromising  fact  is  that  the 


THE  TIDES  95 


tide  which  the  moon  is  alleged  to  raise  up  under  her, 
never  by  any  chance  appears  anyivhere  near  there,  but  in- 
variably hides  below  her  horizon  some  eight  hours  in  her 
wake! 

Having,  let  us  say,  been  freshly  taught  by  our  New- 
tonian savants  as  to  how  the  moon  causes  the  tides,  and, 
furthermore,  that  gravitation  acts  instantly  over  very 
great  distances,  our  first  impulse  is  to  glance  at  the  near- 
est expanse  of  ocean  to  note  the  evidential  phenomena. 
But  instead  of  beholding  the  expected  hillock,  we  really 
see  a  hollow !  Dumf ounded,  w^e  conjure  up  apologies  for 
the  solecism,  as,  that  the  water  here  is  too  shallow,  or 
the  expanse  too  restricted,  and  the  like.  Accordingly,  we 
decide  to  test  out  the  hypothesis  under  the  most  favorable 
conditions  possible,  and  for  this  purpose  select  the 
central  meridian  of  the  Pacific,  on  the  equator,  where  the 
ocean  is  at  its  deepest,  when  the  full  moon  is  in  the  zenith, 
and  where  there  can  be  no  suggestion  of  continental  resis- 
tances to  hinder  the  tidal  process.  But  even  here,  here, 
under  ideal  conditions,  we  behold,  not  a  rise,  but  a  more 
pronounced  depression  than  ever!  and  we  recall  Dar- 
win's words  once  more,  "It  would  seem,  then,  as  if  the 
tidal  action  of  the  moon  was  actually  to  repel  the  water 
instead  of  attracting  it ;  and  we  are  driven  to  ask  whether 
this  result  can  possibly  be  consistent  with  the  theory  of 
universal  gravitation! 

Now  the  tide  must  come  into  being  somewhere  and 
someivhen,  and  it  must  exist  before  it  can  be  "  dragged ". 
If  it  be  not  lifted  into  being  under  the  ideal  conditions 
mentioned  above,  when  or  where  else  can  it  be  generated 
with  greater  certainty  and  facility,  or  more  promptly  1 
Again,  if  it  arise  not  there  until  many  hours  after  the 
moon  has  passed,  how  can  she  drag  thence  against  resis- 
tence  what  she  could  not  and  did  not  lift,  unresisted,  on 
the  spot?  While,  amazedly,  we  are  pondering  these  con- 
tradictions, our  Newtonian  cicerone  pulls  us  by  the  sleeve 
and  learnedly  says,  ' i  The  tide  never  forms  where  it  is 
created,  save  only  in  lofty  scientific  contemplation;  but 
look  away  off  into  the  mid- Atlantic.  There  is  the  tide, ' ' 
he  explains,  "that  the  moon  gave  birth  to  yesterday  while 


96  FEOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

here  over  the  Pacific;  but,  in  the  meantime,  she  has 
dragged  it  thence  overnight  around  the  curve  of  the  globe. 
Eight  hours  hence,  when  the  moon,  now  in  her  zenith,  has 
descended  30  degrees  below  our  western  horizon  and  is 
soaring  over  India",  he  goes  on, "  the  crest  of  the  tide  will 
arrive  here  in  the  midst  of  the  Pacific,  and  we  shall  speak 
of  it  as  this  day's  tide."  Ask  him  at  what  meridian 
yesterday's  tide  dies  out  and  to-day's  begins;  whether 
the  tide  of  the  Atlantic  dissipates  itself  by  contact  with 
the  eastern  shores  of  the  American  continent,  or  is 
dragged  around  Cape  Horn  into  the  eastern  Pacific; 
whether,  if  it  be  thus  dissipated,  the  Pacific  tide  is  not 
also  dissipated  upon  the  eastern  shores  of  Asia,  India  and 
Africa  and  never  enters  the  Atlantic  at  all — and  he  will 
answer  you  somewhat  as  Darwin  does,  "It  is  interesting 
to  reflect  that  our  tides  to-day  depend  even  more  on  what 
occurred  yesterday  or  the  day  before  in  the  Southern 
Pacific  and  Indian  oceans  than  on  the  direct  action  of  the 
moon  to-day — the  problem  is  one  of  insoluble  mystery.'' 

Again,  according  to  Newton,  the  terrestrial  waters 
located  on  the  moonward  side  flow  toward  that  body, 
while  the  waters  on  the  nether  side  tend  toward  the  lunar 
antapex.  Now,  the  crests  of  all  the  tides  at  all  times  are 
invariably  located  below  the  moon's  horizon,  consequently 
they  belong  to  the  nether  hemisphere  and,  by  premiss, 
should  seek  the  antapex.  But  observation  shows  other- 
wise, for  the  main  tide  keeps  coursing  up  the  earth 's  side 
incessantly,  seemingly  determined  to  rise  into  the  moonlit 
hemisphere, — a  feat,  however,  which  it  never  achieves. 
In  short,  whether  we  regard  the  tide  as  part  of  the  moon- 
lit hemisphere  or  as  part  of  the  other,  its  behavior  is 
equally  contradictory  of  the  Newtonian  hypothesis. 

Only  a  little  insight  is  required  to  reveal  that  Newton 
pictures  the  moon  as  doing  and  undoing  its  alleged  work 
at  one  and  the  same  time — a  house  divided  against  itself. 
Could  you  look  down  from  the  moon  you  would  see  no 
sign  of  the  tide,  for  the  crest  of  it  is  perennially  hidden 
from  her  sight  and  even  some  thirty  degrees  around  the 
bend  of  her  horizon.  Now  let  me  ask  you  to  translate 
yourself  in  spirit  to  that  point  in  the  moon's  orbit 


THE  TIDES  97 


diametrically  opposite  her,  and  thence  to  look  down  upon 
that  side  of  the  earth.  According  to  Newton's  primary 
hypothesis,  where  ought  you  to  find  high  water  I  Why, 
at  the  point  vertically  under  you,  in  the  very  center  of  the 
disc.  But  where  do  you  really  find  it  ?  I  answer  you, 
along  the  marginal  rim  of  the  disc.  Strange  contradic- 
tion! Here  we  are  told  that  the  moon's  function  is  to 
gather  the  waters  to  the  places  under  and  opposite  her, 
and  in  the  next  breath  we  are  solemnly  informed  that  by 
virtue  of  that  same  power  she  foils  herself  and  drags 
those  waters  away  from  herself  to  the  places  most  distant 
from  those  central  spots,  and  what  is  more,  perversely 
keeps  them  away!  According  to  theory,  the  tidal  crest 
should  not  roll  toward  the  rim  as  it  does,  but  toward  the 
center  or  antapex,  which  in  fact  it  really  FLEES.  Incon- 
stant moon!  Bringing  to  bear  her  full  lifting  power 
directly  upon  the  upturned  sea,  with  no  resistance  to 
counteract  her,  all  she  can  do  is  to  indent  the  surface! 
With  everything  against  her — continental  resistances, 
the  curvature  of  the  earth,  even  her  own  contrary  pull- 
she  drags  the  tide  after  her  without  a  slip  or  a  break ! 
Every  process  of  dragging  against  resistance  implies  re- 
tardation in  geometrical  ratio :  how  comes  it,  then,  that 
after,  through  this  cause,  having  fallen  behind  the  moon 
120  degrees,  the  tidal  crest  thereafter  eternally  holds  its 
full  integrity  and  speed,  instead  of  softly  diffusing  into  a 
neutral  sheet  f 

We  are  informed  that  the  moon  causes  a  double  tide, 
that  is  to  say,  one  tide  on  the  side  of  the  earth  that  faces 
her,  and  a  secondary  tide  on  the  earth's  face  hidden  from 
her.  The  first  of  these  is  understood  to  be  the  tidal  crest 
which  follows  the  moon  by  the  interval  of  about  eight 
hours  (120  degrees).  For  brevity,  let  us  call  this  the 
"follow"  tide.  Assuming  that  the  secondary  tide  is  nor- 
mally diametrically  opposite  this,  or  180  degrees  behind, 
the  former  should  in  fact  be  just  60  degrees  in  front  of  the 
moon's  position;  hence  we  may,  for  convenience,  call  this 
secondary  tide  the  "leader."  Now,  if  there  is  any  merit 
in  the  conceit  that  the  moon  makes  a  business  of  dragging 
tides  around,  why  does  she  not  lasso  the  leader  tide, 


98  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

where  it  rolls  less  than  a  quadrant  ahead,  and  drag  it 
back  to  her,  and  so  fulfill  the  major  hypothesis?  This 
argument,  in  itself  so  reasonable,  is  made  stronger  by  the 
circumstance  that,  whereas  the  follow  tide,  in  its  effort 
to  reach  the  moon,  is  obstructed  by  the  f  rictional  resis- 
tances conjured  up  by  Newton,  the  same  sort  of  resis- 
tances rising  up  in  the  path  of  the  leader  tide  ought  to 
abet  the  moon's  effort  to  catch  up,  and  drive  that  tide 
back  into  her  corralling  arms.  My  point,  in  brief,  is  this, 
that  if  it  be  indeed  true  that  the  moon  creates  the  tide  by 
uplifting  the  ocean  waters  in  the  manner  conceived  by 
Newton,  there  is  no  valid  physical  reason  or  argument 
why  the  effect  should  not  run  even  with  the  cause,  instead 
of  counter  to  it,  as  it  so  plainly  does. 

It  will  scarcely  be  disputed  that  the  tidal  elevation  is 
necessarily  subject  to  a  continuous  levelling  or  wasting 
process,  tending  toward  the  general  smoothing  over  of 
the  ocean  surface,  and  that,  in  order  that  the  tide  may 
persist,  it  must  be  continuously  recuperated.  Such  res- 
torations must,  perforce,  occur  on  the  spot,  not  thou- 
sands of  miles  away.  Between  the  Cape  Verdes  and  the 
Hawaii  Islands  stretch  about  120  degrees  of  longitude,  so 
that  when  the  moon  soars  over  the  latter,  the  tide  washes 
the  shores  of  the  former.  By  what  dark  magic  does  the 
moon  thus  ventriloquize  her  tidal  mandate  from  where 
she  stands  at  work,  back  around  the  bow  of  the  earth,  to 
the  eastern  Atlantic?  A  straight  line  drawn  from  the 
moon  at  any  time  to  the  tidal  crest  would  pierce  the  earth 
hundreds  of  miles  below  the  surface,  and  it  is  plainly  to 
be  seen  that  the  attraction  of  the  moon,  acting  directly 
along  such  a  line,  will  attack  the  tide  through  the  earth 
from  underneath,  and  should  tend  to  level,  not  to  aug- 
ment its  height.  The  Newtonians,  however,  in  their 
vaunted  wisdom,  picture  the  attraction  of  the  satellite  as 
turning  the  curve  of  the  earth,  as  round  a  pulley,  and  lay- 
ing a  prehensile  hand  upon  the  tide  and  hauling  it  for- 
ward by  main  force. 

Newton's  idea  of  how  the  tides  are  formed,  namely, 
by  the  drawing  away  of  the  nearer  waters  from  the  ker- 
nel, and  the  latter  in  turn  from  the  rearward  waters,  con- 


THE  TIDES  99 


templates,  as  its  vital  feature,  an  actual  physical  dis- 
placement of  all  three  in  the  line  of  the  moon's  radius 
vector.  Let  us  see  just  what  such  possible  displacements 
would  mathematically  amount  to  and  whether  or  not  they 
measure  up  to  the  requirements. 

According  to  the  principle  of  gravitation,  any  object, 
for  example  an  apple,  falling  earthward,  attracts  as  much 
at  it  is  attracted,  for,  viewed  from  either  end,  the  tractive 
tension  is  identically  the  same.  This  does  not  signify, 
however,  that  in  coming  together  earth  and  apple  will 
meet  half  way,  but  rather  that  they  will  traverse  dis- 
tances inversely  proportional  to  the  square  roots  of  their 
masses.  A  while  back,  we  saw  that  the  moon  has  been 
computed  to  fall  1-19  of  an  inch  per  second.  Since,  how- 
ever, she  is  only  1-81  of  the  earth's  size,  the  latter 
should  theoretically  fall  moonward  only  1-171  of  an  inch 
in  the  same  brief  period.  This  computation,  be  it  noted, 
is  based  on  the  original  law  of  the  inverse  squares,  which 
Newton  repudiates  in  favor  of  his  improvised  rule  of  in- 
verse cubes.  Adopting  his  rule,  we  shall  have  to  reduce 
our  already  small  fraction  by  multiplying  the  denomina- 
tor by  60  (the  moon's  distance  being  60  times  the  earth's 
radius),  whence  we  derive  the  quantity  1-10,260  of  an 
inch  as  the  measure  of  the  lunar  tidal  deflection  of  the 
earth  per  second.  But  this  quantity,  again,  must  be 
halved,  for  the  reason  that  there  are  hypothetically  two 
tides,  fore  and  aft,  each  of  which  must  be  allowed  an 
equal  share  of  the  provided  space,  yielding  us  only 
1-20,520  of  an  inch  for  each.  Summing  it  all  up,  Newton's 
conception  contemplates  that  the  moon  by  drawing  the 
oceans  on  the  near  side  away  from  the  earth's  kernel  the 
infinitesimal  fraction  of  1-20,520  of  an  inch  per  second,  at 
once  creates  and  provides  room  for  a  tide  8%  feet  high, 
or  more  than  2,000,000  times  its  own  magnitude !  Doubt- 
less some  will  retort  that  the  tide  is  the  work  of  a  day  and 
not  merely  of  a  second.  Very  well,  grant  even  this  for  the 
sake  of  argument  and  say  the  effect  is  cumulative  for  a 
full  day  and  thereafter  remains  uniform.  In  a  day  there 
are  86,400  seconds :  multiply  this  number  into  1-20,520  of 
an  inch  and  you  get,  even  with  this  improvident  conces- 


100  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

sion,  the  paltry  space  of  only  4%  inches,  or  22  times  less 
than  what  the  case  requires.  For  the  tide  to  reach  the 
high  altitude  of  8y2  feet  that  Newton  gave  it,  the  tidal 
force  would  have  to  accumulate  for  nearly  a  month !  To 
my  mind,  however,  it  is  quite  as  preposterous  to  suppose 
such  cumulativeness  to  take  place  for  the  period  of  a  day 
as  for  a  year,  and  I  hold  that  the  tidal  force  and  the  tidal 
effect  are  mutually  commensurate  from  one  second  to 
another,  and  that  it  is  for  each  individual  second  to  tell 
its  own  tale.  To  get  an  idea  of  the  woful  inadequacy  of 
this  ratio  of  1  to  2,000,000,  then,  the  reader  may  mentally 
compare  a  tub  of  water  to  Niagara  's  overflow  in  the  space 
of  a  full  minute!  To  just  this  extent  does  Newton's  hy- 
pothesis fall  short  of  the  actual  dynamical  requirements. 
In  making  his  computations  of  the  tidal  heights,  even 
on  his  own  theory,  Newton  committed  two  serious  over- 
sights. The  first  of  these  was  in  erroneously  treating  the 
entire  thickness  of  the  equatorial  ring  as  being  centrifu- 
galized  instead  of  only  one-half  of  it.  The  other  half  of 
the  ring  is,  of  course,  rightfully  in  place,  being  a  part  of 
the  original  ideal  spherical  shape.  For  it  should  be  plain 
to  any  person  of  intelligence  that  subtracting  a  unit  from 
one  of  two  equal  quantities  and  adding  that  unit  to  the 
other  quantity  will  make  a  difference  of  two  units,  and  not 
merely  of  one.  Accepting  as  correct  the  estimate  of  the 
earth's  polar  diameter  at  7,899  miles,  and  of  the  equatori- 
al at  7,926  miles,  given  out  by  the  National  Geographi- 
cal Society,  the  disparity  between  the  two  is  27  miles. 
Were  the  earth  molded  into  a  perfect  sphere,  the  terres- 
trial diameter  would  be  uniformly  7912.5  miles.  To  de- 
form the  earth,  then,  into  its  present  shape  required  the 
centrifugalizing  to  the  equatorial  belt  of  13%  miles  of 
thickness  from  the  polar  axis.  But  we  must  not  overlook 
the  circumstance  that  this  excess  matter  is  evenly  dis- 
tributed all  around  the  equator,  consequently  the  thick- 
ness of  the  ring  at  any  given  point  exactly  on  the  equator 
is  131/2  miles  and  the  centrifugalized  part  of  it  only  6% 
miles,  or  only  35,640  feet  as  compared  with  the  85,472  feet 
adopted  by  Newton.  Had  Newton  done  what  rightly  he 
should  have  done,  and  divided  his  quantity  by  two,  he 


THE  TIDES '''''"'*' 


would  have  reduced  his  tidal  heights  for  sun  and  moon  to 
about  5%  inches  and  4  feet  4  inches,  respectively,  and,  on 
the  like  supposition,  Flammar ion's  estimates  would  fall 
to  4.7  and  9.9  inches. 

Newton 's  second  blunder  lay  in  assuming  that  the 
entire  equatorial  ring,  the  whole  13.5  miles,  is  composed 
exclusively  of  water,  though  he  could  not  help  but  know 
that  not  more  than  one-sixth  of  it  is  so  constituted.  A 
strict  regard  for  accuracy  should  have  prompted  him  to 
allow  for  the  probability  that  the  land  masses  and  the 
rocky  bed  of  the  ocean,  which  together  make  up  the  other 
five-sixths,  are  upheld  not  by  centrifugal  force  at  all  but 
by  their  solid  supports.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  he 
made  no  such  allowance,  nor  do  his  successors  to  this  day, 
nor  has  anyone  in  their  behalf  attempted  to  offer  any 
apology  for  the  omission.  The  reason  is  plain  enough, 
for  to  do  so  would  be  to  render  their  estimates  too 
ridiculously  trivial  for  consideration,  namely,  Newton's, 
1  inch  and  9  inches,  and  Flammarion  's,  .8  and  1.8  inches 
respectively.  To  me,  however,  the  most  amazing  thing 
about  the  whole  business  is  the  cool  nonchalence  with 
which  the  whole  tribe  of  Newtonians  help  themselves  to 
this  fund  of  "centrifugal  force"  without  bothering  them- 
selves in  the  least  as  to  whence  it  came,  or  how  it  is  recu- 
perated! They  resemble  the  prodigal  wife  who  could  not 
comprehend  why  her  credit  with  the  bank  had  run  out, 
because  of  the  fact  that  she  still  had  a  plenty  of  blank 
checks  on  hand.  It  is  a  wonder  to  me  that,  with  all  their 
unrivaled  genius  for  invention,  astronomers  have  not  yet 
been  able  to  invent  a  "persistent"  bank  account,  and  so 
rendered  themselves  independent  of  the  donations  they 
are  continually  soliciting  from  a  generous  public. 

Although  astronomers,  as  a  class,  openly  profess  to 
subscribe  to  every  tit  and  tittle  of  Newton's  tidal  theory 
down  to  the  final  deductions  that  non-rotating  bodies  can- 
not bear  tides  and  that  the  axial  rotation  of  the  earth 
supplies  the  power  for  the  terrestrial  tides,  yet  such  is  the 
saving  power  of  common  sense  over  abstract  theory 
that  these  same  astronomers  flirt  with  the  heretical  notion 
of  the  possibility  of  the  existence  of  a  statical  tide  on  non- 


102  FEOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

rotating  bodies.  However,  this  new  notion  may  be 
rendered  compatible  by  employing  another  method  than 
that  of  Newton  to  compute  the  tidal  heights,  a  method, 
too,  that  on  the  face  of  it  is  decidedly  more  logical  in 
every  way,  for  it  not  only  permits  of  the  postulation  of  a 
statical  tide,  but  also  shifts  the  task  of  producing  the  tides 
in  general  from  the  centrifugal  force  of  the  earth  to  the 
moon's  attraction,  where  Newton  initially  meant  to  place 
the  credit. 

According  to  Sir  John  Murray,  the  average  depth  of 
the  oceans  is  12,480  feet,  or  about  149,760  inches.  Let  us, 
if  you  please,  consider  this  water  as  a  prize  being 
wrestled  for  by  the  earth,  on  the  one  hand,  seeking  to 
maintain  it  in  a  quiescent  state  of  equilibrium,  and  the 
moon,  on  the  other,  striving  to  capture  it  from  her.  As 
we  have  already  seen,  Newton  estimated  the  moon's  tidal 
force  as  only  1-2,871,400  of  gravity.  To  get  a  concrete 
basis  of  comparison  between  these  two  forces,  then,  in 
terms  of  ocean  depth,  all  we  need  do  is  to  divide  149,760 
inches  by  2,871,470 ;  giving  for  a  result  approximately 
one-twentieth  of  an  inch,  or  about  the  thickness  of  shoe 
leather.  Of  course,  this  result  is  ridiculously  out  of  pro- 
portion to  the  phenomena  to  be  explained,  but  let  the 
blame  fall  on  the  theory,  where  it  belongs,  and  not  on  my 
method  of  computing  it,  which  is  logically  sound.  The 
average  daily  rainfall  for  the  whole  earth  is  almost 
exactly  one-tenth  of  an  inch.  Assuming  the  average  daily 
evaporation  from  the  surface  of  the  sea  to  be  the  same, 
there  looms  out  the  astounding  reductio  ad  absurdum 
that,  on  Newton's  own  showing,  the  sun's  evaporating 
effect  is  just  twice  as  great  as  the  moon's  tidal  force! 
Besides,  the  sun  raises  his  burden  clear  to  the  clouds. 

Most  of  my  readers,  I  daresay,  imagine  with  Sir 
Eobert  Ball,  the  earth  to  be  a  body  so  enormous,  and  the 
energy  of  its  axial  rotation  so  immeasurably  great,  that 
the  theoretical  drains  scientists  impose  upon  it  are 
relatively  too  trivial  to  cut  any  material  figure.  Suppose 
we  investigate  this  matter  in  the  spirit  of  the  Missourian 
and  let  us  first  take  up  the  factor  of  the  dynamical  sus- 
tentation  of  the  equatorial  ring.  In  his  presentation  of 


THE  TIDES  103 

--TJ-I, 

the  Newtonian  point  of  view,  Sir  John  Herschel  (Outlines 
of  Astronomy,  Art.  224)  says : 

Now,  it  is  highly  satisfactory  to  find  that  the  general  elliptical 
figure  thus  practically  proved  to  exist,  is  precisely  what  ought 
theoretically  to  result  from  the  rotation  of  the  earth  on  its  axis. 
For  let  us  suppose  the  earth  a  sphere,  at  rest,  of  uniform  mate- 
rials throughout,  and  externally  covered  with  an  ocean  of  equal 
depth  in  every  part.  Under  such  circumstances  it  would  ob- 
viously be  in  a  state  of  equilibrium ;  and  the  water  on  its  surface 
would  have  no  tendency  to  run  one  way  or  the  other.  Suppose, 
now,  a  quantity  of  its  materials  were  taken  from  the  polar  regions, 
and  piled  up  all  around  the  equator,  so  as  to  produce  that  differ- 
ence of  the  polar  and  equatorial  diameter  of  26  miles  which  we 
know  to  exist.  It  is  not  less  evident  that  a  mountain  ridge  or 
equatorial  continent,  only,  would  be  thus  formed,  down  which  the 
water  would  run  into  the  excavated  part  at  the  poles.  However 
solid  matter  might  rest  where  it  was  placed,  the  liquid  part,  at 
least,  would  not  remain  there,  any  more  than  if  it  were  thrown  on 
the  side  of  a  hill.  The  consequence,  therefore,  would  be  the 
formation  of  two  great  polar  seas,  hemmed  in  all  around  by 
equatorial  land.  Now,  this  is  by  no  means  the  case  in  nature. 
The  ocean  occupies  indifferently  all  latitudes,  with  no  more 
partiality  to  the  polar  than  to  the  equatorial.  Since,  then,  as  we 
see,  the  water  occupies  an  elevation  above  the  center  no  less  than 
13  miles  at  the  equator  than  at  the  poles  and  yet  manifests  no 
tendency  to  leave  the  former  and  run  toward  the  latter,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  it  must  be  retained  in  that  situation  by  some  adequate 
power.  No  such  power,  however,  would  exist  in  the  case  we 
have  supposed,  which  is  therefore  not  conformable  to  nature.  In 
other  words,  the  spherical  form  is  not  the  figure  of  equilibrium, 
and  therefore  the  earth  is  either  not  at  rest,  or  is  so  internally 
constituted  as  to  attract  the  water  to  its  equatorial  regions,  and 
retain  it  there.  For  the  latter  supposition  there  is  no  prima  facie 
probability,  nor  any  analogy  to  lead  us  to  such  an  idea.  The 
former  is  in  accordance  with  all  the  phenomena  of  the  apparent 
diurnal  motion  of  the  heavens ;  and,  therefore,  if  it  will  furnish  us 
with  the  power  in  question,  we  can  have  no  hesitation  in  adopting 
it  as  the  true  one. 

Now,  everybody  knows  that  when  a  weight  is  whirled  round, 
it  acquires  thereby  a  tendency  to  recede  from  the  centre  of  its 
motion;  which  is  called  the  centrifugal  force.  A  stone  whirled 
round  in  a  sling  is  a  common  illustration ;  but  a  better  for  our 
present  purpose  will  be  a  pail  of  water,  suspended  by  a  cord  and 
made  to  spin  round,  while  the  cord  hangs  perpendicularly.  The 
surface  of  the  water,  instead  of  remaining  horizontal,  will  become 
concave.  The  centrifugal  force  generates  a  tendency  in  all  the 
water  to  leave  the  axis,  and  press  towards  the  circumference ;  it  is 


104  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

therefore,  urged  against  the  pail,  and  forced  up  its  sides,  till  the 
excess  of  height,  and  consequent  increase  of  pressure  downwards, 
just  counterbalance  its  centrifugal  force,  and  a  state  of  equili- 
brium is  attained.  The  experiment  is  a  very  easy  and  instructive 
one,  and  is  admirably  calculated  to  show  how  the  form  of  equili- 
brium accommodates  itself  to  varying  circumstances.  If,  for  ex- 
ample, we  allow  the  rotation  to  cease  by  degrees,  as  it  becomes 
slower  we  shall  see  the  concavity  of  the  water  regularly  diminish ; 
the  elevated  outward  portion  will  descend,  and  the  depressed 
centre  rise,  while  all  the  time  a  perfectly  smooth  surface  is  main- 
tained, till  the  rotation  is  exhausted,  when  the  water  resumes  its 
horizontal  state.  (The  italics  are  all  his.) 

You  cannot  have  forgotten  our  former  experiment  of 
whirling  the  ball  at  the  end  of  the  string,  and  how  I  tried 
to  make  clear  the  fundamental  distinction  between  the 
principle  of  that  experiment,  embracing  as  it  does  a 
' '  flinging  motion ' '  outward  from  the  center,  and  the  case 
of  the  earth  and  moon,  in  which  such  a  flinging  motion  is 
conspicuous  by  its  absence.  I  furthermore  pointed  out 
the  unsavory  fact  that  astronomers  affect  to  believe 
that  the  two  phenomena  are  exactly  analogous. 

That  instance  has  a  parallel.  The  experiment  I  now 
refer  to  is  the  one  purporting  to  illustrate  and  explain  to 
advanced  pupils  the  cause  of  the  earth 's  equatorial  pro- 
tuberance. An  elastic  hoop  is  provided  and  so  adjusted 
on  a  vertical  axis  that  by  means  of  a  crank  it  can  be 
rotated  around  its  axis  at  a  high  velocity.  As  the  crank 
is  turned  faster  and  faster,  the  hoop  is  seen  to  elongate 
horizontally  and  its  vertical  axis  to  shorten  correspond- 
ingly, making  an  ellipse  out  of  what  was  before  a  true 
circle.  Here  the  experiment  is  invariably  brought  to  an 
abrupt  close.  The  lesson  it  is  intended  to  teach  is  that  the 
earth's  oblateness  is  the  physical  effect  of  her  axial  rota- 
tion. 

Now  it  is  most  earnestly  to  be  hoped  that  no  under- 
graduate can  be  discovered  so  preternaturally  dense  as 
to  require  to  be  shown  this  silly  experiment  in  order  to 
teach  him  no  more  than  the  a  priori  knowledge  that  such 
ENFORCED  rotation  must  produce  just  such  effects.  What 
he  wants  to  know,  what  you  want  to  know,  what  the  world 
wants  to  know,  and  what  these  blind  teachers  of  the  blind 


THE  TIDES  105 


cannot  answer  is,  What  keeps  the  earth  turning  on  her 
axis?  The  experiment  of  the  hoop  demonstrates  admir- 
ably that  as  long  as  you  are  content  to  turn  the  crank  the 
hoop  will  not  only  dutifully  rotate,  but  that  it  will  also 
remain  distended.  But  it  also  most  emphatically  demon- 
strates that  the  hoop  will  infallibly  cease  doing  either  of 
these  things  the  moment  you  suspend  your  exertions. 
That  eminent  Newtonian,  Sir  Eobert  Ball,  veraciously 
confesses,  as  we  have  seen,  (p.  90)  that  the  earth  has 
parted  company  with  its  engine,  but  the  machinery,  he 
adds,  is  still  attached.  In  spite  of  the  cranking  power 
having,  as  Ball  imagines,  taken  an  indefinite  vacation, 
the  earth  does  not  seem  to  mind,  but  goes  on  expanding 
herself,  or  rather  keeping  herself  expanded,  from  age  to 
age  and  whirling  upward  her  tides  without  exhibiting  any 
sign  of  slackening  or  weariness.  Here,  again,  observe 
the  want  of  flinging  power  discretely  sidestepped  and  its 
place  supplied  by  the  iteration  of  that  euphonious  but 
vacant  phrase  of  Spencer's,  "persistence  of  force." 
What  a  saving  of  fuel  there  would  be  if  all  the  fly-wheels 
in  our  innumerable  factories  could  be  brought  to  respect 
this  Spencerian  philosophy !  You  might  hunt  the  lunatic 
asylums  through  without  being  able  to  discover  a  poor 
victim  so  hopelessly  bereft  of  reason  as  to  imagine  that  a 
fly-wheel  detached  from  its  engine  will  continue  to  run 
the  machinery  without  coming  to  rest.  Even  the  perpet- 
ual motion  unfortunates  recognize  the  need  of  a  power 
source. 

Suppose  that,  while  the  hoop  is  rotating  at  its  highest 
speed  and  consequently  expanded  to  the  limit,  you  were 
sufficiently  deft  to  insert  in  it  a  horizontal  brace,  you 
could  then  shut  off  the  driving  force  without  impairing 
the  deformation  attained ;  otherwise  the  natural  elasticity 
of  the  steel  will  cause  the  hoop  to  spring  back  into  its 
original  shape.  Again,  you  might  accomplish  this  dis- 
tension of  the  hoop  in  other  ways,  as,  by  setting  a  heavy 
weight  upon  its  rim  while  it  stood  in  an  upright  position, 
or  by  stretching  it  with  your  hands,  or  by  compressing  it 
in  a  vise.  And  yet  again,  if  the  hoop  were  very  large,  or 
relatively  very  thin,  or  composed  of  some  softer  material, 


106  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

as  lead,  its  own  weight  would  tend  to  flatten  it.  in  short, 
there  are  numerous  ways  whereby  the  hoop  may  be 
altered  in  shape,  and  by  analogy,  there  may  well  exist 
more  than  one  way  to  account  for  the  oblateness  of  the 
earth. 

To  ascertain  just  how  much  energy  is  required  to  dis- 
tend our  hoop  to  any  given  degree  of  elongation,  all  that 
is  necesssary  is  to  hang  it  on  the  hook  of  a  balance  scale, 
lend  your  weight  to  the  hoop  until  the  desired  elongation 
is  obtained,  and  then  read  the  scale.  To  effect  this 
elongation  by  cranking  requires  power — a  steady  flow  of 
power  or  energy — exactly  equal  to  the  elastic  strength  of 
the  steel,  as  previously  ascertained  on  the  scale,  or,  what 
is  the  same  thing,  to  the  sustaining  against  gravity  of  a 
weight  of  that  same  magnitude.  It  not  only  required  a 
great  expenditure  of  energy  on  the  part  of  the  earth's 
momentum  to  whirl  the  excess  water  to  the  equator  in  the 
first  instance,  but  it  takes  a  steady  supply  of  power  to 
keep  it  there.  An  illustration  which  may  make  the  matter 
clearer  is  that  of  a  horse  just  able,  by  putting  forth  all  his 
strength,  to  sustain  a  weight  stationary  in  mid  air  at  the 
end  of  a  pulley :  though  the  weight  does  not  rise,  yet  the 
horse  labors  hard  just  to  preserve  the  status. 

Again.  Suppose  that  the  hoop  instead  of  being  made 
of  spring-steel  were  made  of  some  material  that  would 
not  give  while  rotating,  but  continue  to  retain  its  original 
circular  shape,  what  then?  Which  operation,  think  you, 
will  require  the  greater  expenditure  of  power;  to  rotate 
the  rigid  hoop  at  a  given  number  of  revolutions  per 
minute,  or,  the  elastic  one?  The  deformation  of  the 
latter  cannot,  of  course,  be  effected  without  the  absorp- 
tion of  power ;  shall  we  then  conclude  that  to  rotate  it  at 
the  same  rate  of  speed  as  the  other  will  require  just  this 
much  additional  power?  Assuredly  not!  "But,"  you 
may  say,  "then  the  act  of  deformation  does  not  absorb 
energy  as  at  first  supposed?  How  can  we  explain  this 
apparent  paradox?"  The  answer  is  plain  enough.  That 
part  of  the  centrifugal  force  which  in  one  case  manifests 
itself  in  elongating  the  elastic  hoop,  that  is  to  say,  causes 
visible  distortion,  transforms  itself  into  heat  in  the  case 


THE  TIDES  107 


of  the  rigid  one  by  forcing  its  molecules  violently  against 
each  other,  from  within  outward.  Let  this  pressure  pass 
a  certain  mark  and  we  have  the  phenomenon  of  an  explo- 
sion, as,  indeed,  often  occurs  in  the  case  of  fly-wheels. 

These  reflections  bring  out  still  another  radical  dis- 
tinction between  my  views  and  those  of  Newton,  namely, 
that  whereas  he  claims  that  having  once  been  given  its 
rotation,  the  earth  will  continue  to  rotate  forever  by  sheer 
inertia,  because  it  cannot  stop  itself,  I  hold  that  the 
earth,  even  if  it  were  absolutely  rigid  and  possessed  a 
mathematically  spherical  shape,  would  automatically 
bring  itself  to  axial  rest  by  converting  and  yielding  up  its 
centrifugal  force  into  kinetic  energy,  or  heat,  and  radiat- 
ing the  same  out  into  space.  There  simply  must  be  some 
driving  power  behind  the  earth's  rotation.  What  is  it? 
Is  it  natural  or  supernatural,  mechanical  or  miraculous, 
real  or  imaginary,  physical  or  verbal,  inertial  or  creative  ? 
Calling  a  fly-wheel  persistent  will  not  enable  us  to  dis- 
pense with  the  engine,  nor  will  it  serve  any  better  for  the 
earth's  case. 

The  reader  will  perhaps  remember  that,  in  a  former 
chapter,  I  adopted,  as  a  convenient  and  sufficiently  near 
standard  for  the  purpose,  the  sustaining  of  a  ton-weight 
stationary  against  gravity  as  equivalent  to  one  horse- 
power of  energy.  Doubtless  this  is  an  overestimate  of 
the  power,  but,  if  so,  it  is  an  error  on  the  safe  side  and 
will  nevertheless  satisfactorily  serve  our  present  purpose. 

Let  us,  then,  first  inquire  how  much  centrifugal  force 
is  consumed  by  the  work  of  bolstering  up  the  hill  of  water 
in  the  equatorial  regions  and  preventing  it  from  flowing 
down  to  the  lower  level  of  the  arctics ;  for  the  dead  weight 
of  this  mass  answers  to  the  elastic  tension  of  the  steel 
hoop  in  our  former  experiment,  and  since  the  water  is  not 
dammed,  power  alone  will  avail  to  hold  it  steadily  above 
its  natural  level.  According  to  the  authorities,  the  weight 
of  the  oceans  is  in  round  numbers  1,400  quadrillions  of 
tons,  of  which,  let  us  say,  only  half  is  thus  energially  sup- 
ported. It  follows  then,  from  the  premises,  that  either 
some  700-quadrillion-horse-power  engine  which  science 
has  as  yet  failed  to  locate  is  spinning  our  globe  round  and 


108  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

round,  or  that  the  storage  battery  of  the  axial  momentum 
of  the  earth  is  losing  700  quadrillions  of  horse-power 
right  along.  If  the  former  be  the  case,  what  is  that 
power?  If  the  latter,  how  long  can  the  earth's  momen- 
tum hold  out,  and  why  doesn't  the  rotation  slow  down, 
even  a  little  bit  ? 

Again,  accepting  Sir  Robert  Ball  as  spokesman  for 
his  fellow  astronomers  to  the  effect  that  the  energy  that 
produces  the  tides  emanates  not  from  the  sun  or  moon, 
but  out  of  the  earth's  store  of  centrifugal  momentum,  let 
us  see  what  this,  also,  amounts  to.  Flammarion  gives  the 
sum  of  the  lunar  and  solar  tides  as  (approximately)  30 
inches  at  the  equator.  Taking  their  average  height  for 
the  whole  world  as  15  inches,  and  limiting  this  again  to 
only  half  the  ocean  surface  (75,000,000  miles),  gives  a 
weight  of  water  thus  alleged  to  be  perpetually  whirled 
upward  by  the  earth  of,  in  round  numbers,  80  trillions  of 
tons.  As  this  action  is  going  on  all  the  time,  it  means 
that,  on  this  second  count,  the  centrifugal  force  is  wasting 
away  at  the  steady  gait  of  80  trillions  of  horse-power. 

The  complacent  reader  may  think  to  himself  that, 
huge  as  these  drains  upon  the  rotational  energy  of  the 
earth  seem  to  be,  they  must,  nevertheless,  be  negligible 
in  comparison  with  their  source,  else  our  Newtonian 
friends  would  not  dare  to  draw  upon  that  source  so  ex- 
travagantly as  they  do.  Now,  it  is  easily  possible  to  as- 
certain the  magnitude  of  this  supply  in  terms  of  horse- 
power within  reasonable  limits  of  accuracy.  Assuming 
that  one-half  of  the  earth's  mass  is  contained  within  an 
inner  core  6,000  miles  in  diameter,  and  that  the  average 
velocity  of  the  whole  mass  is  the  same  as  the  velocity  of 
any  point  on  the  equator  of  that  core,  the  distance  cov- 
ered in  a  single  second  would  be  1160  feet.  This  is  mani- 
festly an  overestimate,  seeing  that,  in  the  higher  lati- 
tudes, the  velocity  is  necessarily  much  less,  and,  for  con- 
venience, we  may  arbitrarily  reduce  this  quantity  to  1116 
feet  per  second,  which,  though  still  too  high,  happens  to 
be  one-third  of  the  orbital  velocity  of  the  moon  and  there- 
fore simplifies  the  present  calculation  by  furnishing  us 
with  a  convenient  standard  for  comparison. 


THE  TIDES  109 


Now,  in  Chapter  II,  if  you  remember,  I  computed  the 
energy  value  of  the  momentum  of  the  moon,  traveling  as 
she  does  at  the  rate  of  3350  feet  per  second,  to  be  2,112 
trillions  of  horse-power  days  (8.8  x  240  trillions).  Multi- 
plying this  quantity,  then,  by  81  because  of  the  earth 's 
greater  mass,  but  dividing  the  product  by  9  (the  square  of 
3,  since  the  energy  varies  with  the  square  of  the  velocity) 
because  of  her  slower  (axial)  speed,  we  obtain  the  sum  of 
20,000  trillions  as  the  total  number  of  horse-power  days 
" stored "  in  the  earth's  axial  momentum  at  this  given 
instant.  Compare  this  solitary  energy  asset  now,  if  you 
please,  with  our  liabilities  as  previously  appraised,  and 
you  will  be  startled  to  find  that  were  it  to  be  applied 
solely  to  the  sustentation  of  the  equatorial  ring  it  would 
exhaust  itself  in  the  brief  space  of  less  than  a  single  hour, 
or  if  applied  wholly  to  the  raising  of  the  tides,  in  just  250 
days !  What  is  the  answer?  How  comes  it  that  our  asset 
remains  obviously  intact  in  spite  of  these  stupendous 
drains  1  Can  Sir  Robert  be  right  in  likening  the  earth  to 
a  fly-wheel  detached  from  its  engines?  Did  you  ever  see 
a  "fly-wheel  detached  from  its  engine,  but  still  connected 
with  the  machinery'7  fail  to  betray  signs  of  slowing  up 
almost  immediately,  and  shortly  come  to  a  dead  stop! 
Furthermore,  what  sort  of  an  engine  was  it  to  which  the 
terrestrial  fly-wheel  we  call  the  earth  was  once  attached, 
and  how  did  it  become  detached,  and  where  is  it  now? 

Tide  or  no  tide,  equatorial  ring  or  none,  it  is  not  true 
that  a  great  ball  like  ours,  even  were  it  the  only  one  in  ex- 
istence, could,  once  started,  continue  to  rotate  forever 
"because  there  would  be  nothing  to  stop  it."  There  is 
such  a  something — gravity.  It  has  been  estimated  that 
the  earth  would  have  to  rotate  17  times  as  fast  as  it  does 
before  a  loose  rock,  say,  on  its  surface  "would  lose  all  its 
weight  and  fly  off  to  become  a  self-sustaining  satellite." 
Now,  it  seems  quite  plain  that  if  the  earth  as  a  whole  is  to 
keep  on  turning  itself  round  and  round  forever,  every 
particle  of  it  must  be  capable  of  doing  its  own  carrying 
and  not  depend  for  levitation  or  propulsion  on  its  neigh- 
bors, who  have  equal  need  of  like  help  themselves.  Ac- 
cording to  Newtonians,  the  rotation  of  the  earth  lightens 


110  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

any  given  object  at  the  equator  by  only  1-289  of  its 
weight,  so  that  a  mountain  weighing,  say,  289,000  tons 
may  be  provisionally  construed  to  be  self-sustaining  by 
virtue  of  its  "persistent"  momentum  to  the  extent  of 
1000  of  its  tons,  but  as  to  the  remaining  288,000  tons  it 
must  be  regarded  as  a  burden  imposed  upon  some  carry- 
ing agency  underneath  it.  .  The  bed  of  rock  on  which  the 
mountain  reposes  is,  in  turn,  along  with  its  load,  a  still 
weightier  burden  on  the  next  stratum  beneath,  and  so  on 
down  to  the  center  of  the  earth.  But  the  earth's  center 
is  only  a  mathematical  point!  Nowhere  do  we  come 
across  any  sign  of  a  motive  power.  There  are  only  two 
ways  of  dealing  with  this  mystery.  One  is  by  appealing 
to  the  miraculous,  alias  "celestial  mechanics, "  as  the 
Newtonians  do ;  the  other  by  placing  the  finger  on  the 
substantial  cause.  That  cause,  I  hope  to  convince  the 
reader  is  none  other  than  the  tides  themselves. 


VI 


THE  LAW  OF  EQUILIBEIUM 

THAT  objects  near  the  earth's  surface  seek  their  low- 
est center  of  gravity,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing, 
their  equilibrium,  was  known  long  before  Newton's 
time  quite  as  well  as  it  is  in  ours.  Indeed,  it  may  truly  be 
said  to  have  been  better  understood  then  than  now,  for 
the  reason  that  Newton,  in  his  quest  for  the  solution  of  the 
mystery  of  the  tides,  introduced  a  perversion  of  the  law 
that  has  ever  since  obsessed  the  scientific  mind  and  inci- 
dentally worked  untold  injury  to  the  cause  of  astro- 
nomical science.  This  pseudo  doctrine  of  which  I  speak 
teaches  that  bodies  lose  the  power  of  self -balancing  when 
falling  in  vacuo,  and  is  founded  upon  what  is  commonly 
known  as  the  vacuum-tube  experiment,  which  is  thus  suc- 
cinctly described  in  Ganot's  Physics  (Art.  77) : 

Since  a  body  falls  to  the  ground  in  consequence  of  the  earth's 
attraction  on  each  of  its  molecules,  it  follows  that,  everything  else 
being  the  same,  all  bodies,  great  and  small,  light  and  heavy,  ought 
to  fall  with  equal  rapidity,  and  a  lump  of  sand  without  cohesion 
should,  during  its  fall,  retain  its  original  form  as  perfectly  as  if  it 
were  compact  stone.  The  fact  that  a  stone  falls  more  rapidly 
than  a  feather  is  due  solely  to  the  unequal  resistance  opposed  by 
the  air  to  the  descent  of  these  bodies ;  in  a  vacuum  all  bodies  fall 
with  equal  rapidity.  To  demonstrate  this  by  experiment  a  glass 
tube  about  two  yards  long  may  be  taken,  having  one  of  its  ends 
completely  closed,  and  a  brass  cock  fixed  to  the  other.  After 
having  introduced  bodies  of  different  weights  and  densities 
(pieces  of  lead,  paper,  feather,  etc.)  into  the  tube,  the  air  is  with- 
drawn from  it  by  an  air  pump,  and  the  cock  closed.  If  the  tube 
be  now  suddenly  reversed,  all  the  bodies  will  fall  equally  quickly. 
On  introducing  a  little  air  and  again  inverting  the  tube,  the  lighter 
bodies  become  slightly  retarded,  and  this  retardation  increases 
with  the  quantity  of  air  introduced. 


112  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

Now,  it  is  a  sound  and  cardinal  rule  of  experimental 
science  that  the  experimenter  shall  not  allow  his  personal 
predilections  to  color  the  result.  Unfortunately,  New- 
ton and,  worse  still,  all  who  have  since  been  led  to  repeat 
this  particular  experiment  have  started  out  with  no  other 
possibility  in  mind  than  that  the  moon  is  the  major  cause 
of  the  tides ;  and  it  is  therefore  not  at  all  surprising  that 
all  of  them  alike  have  fallen  blind  victims  to  the  same 
blunder.  Nor,  when  we  recall  the  countless  instances  in 
the  past  of  the  tenacity  of  traditional  error,  should  it  be 
any  more  surprising  that  Newton's  tidal  hypothesis  has 
survived  in  human  opinion  the  positive  disproof  of  the 
same  by  Nature  herself. 

The  worst  fault  I  have  to  find  with  modern  astron- 
omy is  its  impotency  to  rid  itself  of  the  ancient  pro- 
pensity of  trying  to  interpret  the  phenomena  of  the 
firmament  by  systematically  differentiating  between  ter- 
restrial natural  law  and  celestial  natural  law.  The  one 
great  truth  I  seek  to  inculcate  is  that  natural  law  is  every- 
where identically  the  same,  from  center  to  circumference 
of  the  physical  universe,  be  it  finite  or  infinite.  Meta- 
physics and  physics  are  independent  worlds.  You  can- 
not rationally  postulate  uncaused  rectilinear  physical 
motions  or  assert  that  persistence  and  inertia  are  equiva- 
lent terms  and  still  claim  to  be  a  scientist  in  the  ideal 
sense.  Here  in  this  question  as  to  the  universality  of  the 
law  of  equilibrium  we  have  another  such  case  in  point.  It 
would  seem  that  Newtonians  look  upon  the  principle  of 
equilibrium  as  a  sort  of  incubus  upon  matter,  a  mistake  of 
Nature's  as  it  were,  and  that  they  feel  that  they  are  per- 
forming a  signal  service  to  her  by  cogitating  this  base 
mundane  impediment  out  of  existence  in  the  "nobler" 
universe  above  us.  Terrestrial  objects,  say  they,  are 
bound  by  the  law  of  equilibrium ;  celestial  bodies,  on  the 
contrary,  are  of  a  higher  order  and  are  absolved  from 
such  servile  obedience.  With  them  "celestial  me- 
chanics" is  not  terrestrial  mechanics  applied  to  stellar 
objects,  but  rather  an  elaborate  transmogrification  of  it. 
Where  Newton  did  not  hesitate  to  invoke  divine  agency 
to  explain  such  physical  wonders  of  the  heavens  as  he 


THE  LAW  or  EQUILIBRIUM  113 

himself  could  not  fathom,  his  followers,  more  materialis- 
tically given,  have  aimed  to  supply  the  place  of  the  Deity 
by  the  banality  of  alleging  such  wonders  to  be  " natural' ', 
without  taking  over  the  burden  of  showing  why  and  how 
they  are  natural.  They  convince  themselves  that  the  sun 
and  the  stars  are  dashing  through  space,  and  then  they  go 
on  and  say  it  is  "natural"  for  all  celestial  bodies  thus  to 
dash  through  space,  and  that  the  phenomenon  '  '  demands 
explanation  only  as  mere  existence  does."  They  behold 
one  member  of  a  binary  star  circling  about  its  fellow,  so 
they  declare  ' '  the  central  one  whirls  the  other  round  and 
round, ' '  and  that  such  behavior  is  natural,  up  in  the  sky. 
They  see  the  earth  rotating  on  its  axis,  and  this  again 
they  sagely  inform  us  is  natural,  also,  else  why,  forsooth, 
should  it  be  so  rotating?  Furthermore,  seeing  the  equa- 
torial ring,  they  say  that  such  momenta  as  inhabit  plane- 
tary bodies  are  different  "by  nature"  from  terrestrial 
momenta  in  this,  that  they  are  ' '  persistent, ' '  and  can  go 
on  doing  work  forever  without  any  fresh  feeding  of  the 
motive  power.  All  these  so-called  laws  ( !)  they  affect  to 
believe  true  of  celestial  mechanics ;  and,  in  line  with  this 
policy,  they  teach  that  the  vulgar  law  of  equilibrium  is 
altogether  too  corporeal  to  consort  with  these  supernal 
archetypes. 

Far  from  being  a  clog  upon  matter,  whether  here  or 
in  the  sky,  whether  in  this  paper  weight  or  in  the  terres- 
trial globe  of  which  it  is  a  part,  the  principle  of  equili- 
brium is  an  inestimable  endowment  indispensable  to  the 
preservation  and  regulation  of  the  universe  in  all  its  ac- 
tivities and  through  all  its  broad  extent.  Here  on  earth,, 
is  not  equilibrium  the  ruling  factor  that  makes  for  order 
as  against  confusion,  for  system  as  opposed  to  chaos? 
Why  should  it  be  preferentially  assumed,  then,  that,  in 
the  greater  cosmos,  the  principle  should  prove  itself 
otherwise?  As  well  might  one  advocate  the  abolition  of 
rudders  as  being  an  impediment  to  ships,  which  other- 
wise would  be  free  to  move  indiscriminately.  The  one 
great  truth,  rising  mountain  high  above  all  others  in  the 
realm  of  physical  science,  is,  that  natural  law  is  ir- 
revocably unchangeable,  and  that,  for  all  its  inflexible 


114  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

rigidity,  the  universe  it  controls  is  at  once  fraught  with 
kaleidoscopic  changes  of  infinite  range,  yet  withal  peren- 
nially maintained  in  order.  So  must  it  ever  continue,  as 
ever  it  has  continued. 

If  astronomy  is  to  qualify  to  take  a  rightful  place 
among  the  so-called  natural  sciences,  its  devotees  must 
outgrow  the  ancient  habit  of  viewing  the  firmament 
through  metaphysical  glasses.  The  doctrine  of  conser- 
vation of  moment  of  momentum  is  quite  as  much  a  philo- 
sophical abstraction  as  the  Ptolemaic  one  that  planets  re- 
volve in  exact  circles ;  the  dogma  of  the  persistency  of 
planetary  motions,  as  miraculistic  as  the  parable  of  the 
loaves  and  fishes;  the  .self -projection  of  celestial  bodies, 
as  frankly  contra-natural  as  Joshua's  halting  of  the  sun. 
Thanks  to  Copernicus,  Kepler,  Galileo,  and  Newton,  as- 
tronomy has,  indeed,  escaped  out  of  the  umbra  of  medi- 
evalism, but  it  is  still  whelmed  in  the  penumbra  that  sees 
only  a  fraction  of  the  full  truth.  Astronomers  of  to-day, 
unlike  the  ancient  sages,  no  longer  worship  the  inanimate 
sun,  moon  and  planets  as  so  many  gods  and  goddesses; 
nor  did  Pope  Pius  on  the  last  apparition  of  Halley's  com- 
et, in  1910,  follow  the  superstitious  example  of  his  prede- 
cessor, Pope  Calixtus  III,  who,  on  the  occasion  of  its  ap- 
pearance in  1456,  ordered  the  bells  in  all  the  churches  to 
be  rung  and  prayers  to  be  said  by  everyone  for  the  pur- 
pose of  exorcising  the  comet,  which  he  and  all  his  genera- 
tion believed  to  be  an  evil  spirit.  In  this  connection  it 
may  be  illuminating  to  modern  readers  to  scan  the  fol- 
lowing passages  from  the  pen  of  Sir  David  Brewster 
(Memoirs  of  Newton,  v.  II,  pp.  81  and  313),  as  giving  an 
insight  into  the  extent  of  Newton 's  own  teleological  views, 
and  particularly  as  showing  that  he  was  not  oblivious  to 
the  unbridged  gaps  in  his  cosmological  theories: 

To  make  such  a  system  with  all  its  motions,  required  a  cause 
which  understood  and  compared  together  the  quantities  of  mat- 
ter in  the  several  bodies  of  sun  and  planets,  and  the  gravitating 
powers  resulting  from  thence;  the  several  distances  of  the  primary 
planets  from  the  sun  and  of  the  secondary  ones  from  Saturn, 
Jupiter  and  the  earth,  and  the  velocities  with  which  those  planets 
could  revolve  about  those  quantities  of  matter  in  those  central 
bodies ;  and  to  compare  and  adjust  all  these  things  together  in  so 


THE  LAW  or  EQUILIBRIUM  115 

great  variety  of  bodies,   argues  that   cause  to  be  not  blind  and 
fortuitous,  but  very  well  skilled  in  mechanics  and  geometry. 

In  concluding  this  brief  notice  of  the  progress  of  physical  as- 
tronomy since  the  time  of  Newton  in  a  few  of  its  leading  features, 
we  are  naturally  led  to  ponder  on  the  great  truth  of  the  stability 
and  permanence  of  the  solar  system  as  demonstrated  by  the  dis- 
coveries of  Lagrange  and  Laplace.  In  the  present  day,  when 
worlds  and  systems  of  worlds,  when  life  physical  and  life  intel- 
lectual are  supposed  to  be  the  result  of  general  law,  it  is  interest- 
ing to  study  those  conditions  of  the  planetary  system  which  are 
necessary  to  its-  stability,  and  to  consider  whether  they  appear  to 
be  the  result  of  necessity  or  design.  It  follows,  from  the  dis- 
coveries of  Laplace,  that  there  are  three  conditions  essential  to  the 
stability  and  permanence  of  the  solar  system,  namely,  the  motion 
of  all  the  planets  in  the  same  direction, — their  motion  in  orbits 
slightly  elliptical,  or  nearly  circular, — and  the  commensurability 
of  their  periods  of  revolution.  That  these  conditions  are  not  nec- 
essary is  very  obvious.  Any  one  of  them  may  be  supposed  dif- 
ferent from  what  it  is,  while  the  rest  remained  the  same.  The 
planets,  like  the  comets,  might  have  been  launched  in  different  di- 
rections, and  moved  in  planes  of  various  and  great  inclinations 
to  the  ecliptic.  They  might  have  been  propelled  with  such  varie- 
ties of  tangential  force  as  to  have  moved  in  orbits  of  great  ellip- 
ticity;  and  no  reason,  even  of  the  most  hypothetical  nature,  can 
be  assigned  why  their  annual  periods  might  not  have  been  incom- 
mensurable. The  arrangements,  therefore,  upon  which  the  sta- 
bility of  the  system  depends,  must  have  been  the  result  of  design, 
the  contrivance  of  that  omniscience  that  foresaw  all  that  was  fu- 
ture, and  that  infinite  skill  which  knew  how  to  provide  for  the 
permanence  of  His  work. 

Another  thing  which  doubtless  has  had  a  consider- 
able retarding  influence  upon  the  trend  of  astronomical 
thought,  and  which  still  makes  its  presence  felt,  is  the 
use  of  the  same  words — celestial,  heavens,  heavenly,  and 
the  like — to  designate  both  things  spiritual  and  things 
firmament  al.  The  reader  may  judge  for  himself  the 
strength  of  this  influence  by  a  mental  analysis  of  what 
such,  a  phrase,  for  example,  as  " celestial  mechanics" 
means  to  him.  I  would  respectfully  ask  whether  it  does 
not  connote  for  him  a  sort  of  transcendental  mechanics, 
a  mechanics  in  some  sort  liberated  from  the  rigid  inflexi- 
bility of  our  mundane  natural  laws  and  one,  too,  neces- 
sitating the  postulation  of  laws  and  principles  peculiar  to 
cosmic  as  contradistinguished  from  terrestrial  objects? 


116  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

If  it  does,  and  if  thisbethe  significance  the  term  possesses 
in  the  consciousness  of  scientists  in  general,  the  sooner  it 
is  revised  the  better.  With  these  reflections  in  mind, 
then,  let  us  see  if  we  cannot  make  shift  to  resurrect  the 
law  of  equilibrium  out  of  the  tomb  Newton  prepared  for  it, 
and  utilize  it  to  good  purpose  in  the  working  out  of  that 
greatest  of  all  physical  problems,  the  structure  of  the 
universe. 

NEWTON'S  VACUUM-TUBE  EXPERIMENT 

In  the  first  place,  let  it  be  remembered  that  this  ex- 
periment was  designed  and  undertaken  with  but  one  ob- 
ject in  view,  namely,  to  prove  up  Newton's  rashly-con- 
ceived hypothesis  regarding  the  cause  of  the  tides.  Had 
subsequent  investigations  of  the  tidal  phenomena  borne 
out  the  hypothesis,  the  fact  would  have  constituted  an  all 
but  conclusive  confirmation  of  the  basic  lesson  drawn 
from  the  experiment.  Far  from  this  being  the  case,  how- 
ever, we  are  informed  by  such  lofty  authorities  as  Dar- 
win, Kelvin  and  Young — Newtonians  all  par  excellence — • 
that  the  tidal  hypothesis  is  "utterly  unsatisfactory  in  re- 
gard to  what  actually  takes  place,"  and  that  "it  is  nearly 
as  much  wrong  as  possible. ' '  If  there  is  any  merit  in  the 
logic  of  facts,  then,  it  follows  that  the  hypothesis,  having 
been  weighed  in  the  balance  of  Nature  and  found  wanting, 
every  link  in  the  chain  of  deduction  is  forcibly  brought 
under  suspicion.  The  staple  link  in  this  chain  is  the 
vacuum-tube  experiment ;  why,  then,  should  its  soundness 
be  taken  for  granted?  In  view  of  the  disastrous  outcome, 
is  not  the  probability  precisely  the  reverse ! 

In  the  next  place  let  me  ask,  What  is  the  physical  or 
causal  relationship,  if  any,  subsisting  between  the  sur- 
rounding medium  and  the  equilibristic  tendency  of  any 
object  therein  contained?  Is  there,  perhaps,  some  secret 
virtue  in  the  atmosphere  that,  passing  into  the  object,  im- 
parts to  it  the  power  or  imposes  upon  it  the  obligation  to 
lower  its  center  of  gravity?  And,  conversely,  does  the 
withdrawal  of  the  air  from  the  receiver  deprive  it,  pro 
tanto,  of  that  power  or  absolve  it  from  that  obligation? 


THE  LAW  or  EQUILIBRIUM  117 

If  this  is  what  Newtonians  really  mean  to  imply — and  it 
is  difficult  to  construe  their  attitude  otherwise — they 
throw  themselves  open  to  a  gross  inconsistency,  namely ; 
in  denying  to  the  earth,  in  their  tidal  theory,  the  power 
of  equilibrium,  for  the  earth  is  blessed  with  a  stupendous 
atmosphere.  Moreover,  supposing  it  true  that  the  medi- 
um does  possess  such  virtue,  then  unsymmetrical  objects 
resting  on  the  floor  of  the  vacuum  should  be  as  exempt 
from  the  law  as  at  any  height  within  that  chamber; 
whereas  the  undeniable  fact  is  that  such  bodies  upright 
themselves  just  as  certainly  as  they  do  in  air  or  water. 
It  is  as  clear  as  day  that  in  this  case  the  medium  func- 
tions only  by  moderating  the  velocity  of  the  fall,  thereby 
affording  the  investigator  time  and  facility  for  studious 
observation. 

Obviously,  then,  the  principle  of  equilibrium  exists 
altogether  independently  of  the  atmosphere.  Its  real  es- 
sence— how  can  any  one  doubt  it? — lies  in  gravitation, 
nothing  else ;  and,  like  the  latter,  or  rather  because  both 
are  of  the  same  essence,  it  can  no  more  abandon  any 
particle  of  matter,  or  be  niched  from  it,  than  can  gravita- 
tion itself.  In  olden  days  it  used  to  be  argued  that  when 
a  balloon  rose  in  air,  it  was  because  gravity  had  ceased  to 
act  upon  it.  One  of  the  best  answers  to  that  fallacy  was 
that  the  balloon,  even  when  in  the  act  of  rising,  continu- 
ously observes  the  law  of  equilibrium,  keeping  its  heavier 
part  underneath.  To-day  we  have  the  same  old  dispute 
resurrected,  but  at  the  other  end  of  the  chain.  Now  it  is 
the  principle  of  equilibrium  that  is  at  issue.  By  means 
of  an  opposite  sort  of  device,  man  has  invented  a  way  of 
causing  objects  to  fall  with  even  greater  velocity  than 
they  do  in  air,  and  to  fall  so  rapidly,  indeed,  that  their 
subtle  efforts  at  self-balancing  successfully  elude  the 
keenest  eye.  Thus  is  the  presence  of  the  principle  of 
equilibrium  obscured  now,  as  was  the  presence  of  gravity 
formerly  in  the  phenomenon  of  the  balloon.  It  is  a  poor 
rule,  they  say,  that  doesn't  work  both  ways;  Why  not 
then  apply  the  converse  of  the  old  reasoning  ?  Why  not 
say,  inasmuch  as  the  action  of  gravity  on  the  balloon,  in 
spite  of  its  act  of  rising  "against  gravity,"  was  legit- 


118  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

imately  inferrable  from  the  circumstance  of  the  balloon 's 
preserving  its  lowest  center,  so  the  action  of  the  law  of 
equilibrium,  in  the  case  of  the  object  in  the  tube,  though 
masked  from  our  perception  behind  its  high  velocity,  is 
reciprocally  inferrable  from  the  fact  of  the  fall? 

How,  do  you  suppose,  was  the  existence  of  a  center  of 
gravity  in  objects  originally  discovered?  By  casually 
noting  the  fall  of  apples  from  trees  f  Certainly  not !  The 
unmistakable  way  was  to  choose  a  suitable  object,  im- 
merse it  in  a  liquid,  and  then  watch  its  behavior.  To  this 
process  two  things  were  essential ;  the  first  being  that  the 
object  examined  be  left  perfctly  free  to  turn  upon  itself; 
the  second,  that  it  be  kept  steady  enough  to  allow  the  eye 
opportunity  for  critical  inspection.  No  one  will  question 
the  commonsensibleness  of  this  method,  and,  indeed,  our 
modern  physicists  even  as  late  as  this  know  of  no  better 
way. 

Now,  when  Newton  came  to  prove  up  his  tidal  theory, 
he  found  the  knowledge  of  the  law  of  equilibrium  there 
before  him,  and  he  did  not  find  it  to  his  liking;  for,  as  I 
have  previously  stated,  it  did  not  accord  with  his  major 
premiss  that  the  moon  is  the  chief  tidal  force.  Most  of  us 
have  the  faults  of  our  virtues,  and  Newton  was  no  excep- 
tion. Always  fertile  in  expedients,  he  was  sometimes  as 
inventive  in  the  pursuit  of  error  as  he  was  at  other  times 
in  the  cause  of  truth.  Precisely  retracing  the  course  by 
which  the  law  had  originally  been  brought  to  light,  he  one 
by  one  systematically  restored  all  the  obstacles  that 
aforetime  had  blocked  the  road  to  its  unearthing,  and,  by 
this  unworthy  subterfuge,  undid  discovery  and  relegated 
this  inestimable  diadem  of  knowledge  back  again  into  the 
limbo  of  the  Unknown.  His  tube  having  to  be  of  glass,  to 
ensure  transparency,  and  glass  being  by  nature  very  fra- 
gile, it  was  manifestly  impracticable  to  provide  one  of  even 
moderate  length,  so  it  was  actually  made  but  five  feet 
long.  Moreover,  the  tube  needing  to  be  hermetically 
sealed  as  a  necessary  condition  to  the  pumping  out  of  the 
enclosed  air,  it  became  automatically  impossible  to  intro- 
duce instruments  for  precise  measurements,  supposing 
such  exactness  to  have  been  desired.  Finally  came  the 


THE  LAW  OF  EQUILIBRIUM  119 

removal  of  the  resistance  by  conscientiously  exhausting 
the  air.  Having  carefully  gone  through  all  these  ma- 
neuvers and  satisfied  himself,  for  the  last  time,  that 
Nature  was  now  effectually  gagged,  he  called  to  her: 
"  Prove  to  me  now  in  the  wink  of  an  eye  that  these  ob- 
jects, as  they  fall  through  this  tube,  obey  your  boasted 
law  of  equilibrium.  If  you  fail,  I  will  brand  you  for  all 
time  to  come  as  the  most  inconstant  of  your  sex."  New- 
ton made  no  allowance,  nor  wished  to  make  any,  for  the 
brevity  of  the  time,  the  extreme  shortness  of  the  fall,  the 
persistence  of  retinal  impressions,  the  notorious  uncer- 
tainty of  the  human  eye  in  general,  his  owrn  mental  bias — 
all  he  aimed  at  was  to  confirm  his  already  fixed  opinion 
and  to  clinch  his  ill-fated  tidal  hypothesis.  But  Nature, 
after  generations  of  misrepresentation  passed,  finds  voice 
at  last  through  Kelvin,  Darwin,  Young  and  the  rest  and 
proclaims  that  the  hypothesis  is  "  as  false  as  can  be. ' ' 
Alas,  she  has  been  silent  too  long,  and  not  even  her 
mouthpieces  heed  her  testimony ! 

Ask  any  modern  physicist  whether  a  shell  fired  from 
a  mortar  observes  the  law  of  lowest  center,  and  he  will 
unhesitatingly  answer,  yes.  He  cannot  see  even  the  path 
of  the  shell,  much  less  the  gyrations  of  the  missile  upon 
itself,  but  for  all  that  he  is  none  the  less  positive.  Why? 
Because  he  intuitively  reasons  to  the  truth  beyond  this 
negative  evidence.  He  will  sensibly  argue,  "I  cannot 
perceive  grass  grow,  but  I  know  it  does  grow.  I  cannot 
detect  the  motion  of  the  stars,  and  for  ages  mankind  be- 
lieved them  absolutely  fixed,  but  science  has  now  demon- 
strated that  they  do  move,  and  at  astounding  velocities. 
With  my  naked  eye  I  cannot  see  animalcules,  but  the  mi- 
croscope reveals  to  me  their  existence".  All  this  he  will 
say,  and  more ;  yet,  in  the  end,  he  will  reiterate  with  una- 
bashed finality,  ' '  I  cannot  descry  any  sign  on  the  part  of 
the  object  falling  in  the  vacuum  to  seek  its  lowest  center 
of  gravity,  ergo,  I  deny  that  it  does  so." 

If  there  is  anything  that  science  can  take  just  pride 
in,  it  is  in  those  inventions  which  have  extended  human 
knowledge  into  domains  beyond  our  direct  sense  percep 
lions.     The  telescope  revealed  to  Galileo  the  rings  of  P 


120  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

turn,  the  four  moons  of  Jupiter,  and  the  phases  of  Venus ; 
and  improvements  of  the  instrument  have  brought  to 
light  countless  other  wonders.  No  doubt  the  bigoted 
Libri,  Galileo  ?s  bitterest  critic,  had  he  had  the  power, 
would  have  been  glad  to  reverse  the  telescope  for  all  time, 
as  a  means  of  guarding  mankind  from  the  perils  of  unbe- 
lief. In  effect,  that  is  just  about  what  Newton  did.  He 
found  humanity  possessed  of  the  knowledge  that  bodies 
seek  their  lowest  centers  of  gravity,  a  knowledge  which 
had  previously  been  arrived  at  by  painstakingly  bringing 
within  the  purview  of  human  perception  what  before  had 
been  hidden  from  sight;  and,  for  mere  expediency's  sake, 
he  deliberately  suppressed  that  knowledge  by  snuffing 
out  the  torch  by  whose  light  it  had  been  revealed.  In 
short,  he  "reversed  the  telescope, "  and  for  this  all  the 
scientific  world  has  never  ceased  to  hold  him  in  rever- 
ence! Forced  to  choose  between  Newton's  tidal  theory 
and  Nature's  solemn  contradiction,  our  modern  astron- 
omers uphold  the  first  against  the  last,  so  great  is  the 
prestige  of  Newton  to-day,  who,  during  his  long  life,  was 
ridiculed  and  condemned.  For  what  use  is  it  that  man 
has  invented  the  telescope,  the  microscope,  the  ther- 
mometer, the  barometer,  the  bolometer,  the  spectroscope, 
the  photographic  plate,  etc.,  if  their  valuable  evidence  is 
thus  to  be  arbitrarily  set  aside  to  suit  the  exigencies  of 
crazy  hypothesis  I 

Of  course,  there  is  the  possibility  that  many  scien- 
tists are  already  convinced,  not  necessarily  from  any  ar- 
guments I  have  here  advanced,  but  as  a  result  of  their 
own  private  reflections.  However,  they  have  none  of 
them,  so  far,  seen  fit  to  speak  out ;  possibly  because  of  a 
wholesome  and  well-founded  dread  of  the  hierarchical 
lash.  Your  Newtonian  professor  may,  indeed,  say  with 
Darwin  that  the  tidal  theory  is  as  false  as  can  be,  but  he 
must,  under  peril  of  dismissal,  subserviently  couple  the 
heresy  with  the  retraction  that  he  believes  in  it  notwith- 
standing, and  that  he  will  continue  faithfully  to  teach  it 
to  his  classes  as  one  of  the  gospels  of  science.  You  may, 
•owever,  test  his  sincerity,  if  you  will,  after  some  such 
nner  as  the  following : 


THE  LAW  OF  EQUILIBRIUM 121 

Provide  yourself  with  a  pair  of  false  dice  so  heavily 
loaded  as  to  turn  up  sixes  at  every  throw,  and  let  the  cast- 
ing of  pairs  of  sixes  constitute  the  winner.  Exhibit  these 
to  any  Newtonian  of  your  acquaintance,  not  concealing 
from  him  their  fraudulent  character.  Then,  taking  a 
perfectly  true  pair  of  dice  from  your  pocket,  hand  them 
to  him  and  say :  ' '  Here,  friend,  is  a  pair  of  honest  dice 
for  you.  Let  us  throw  for  the  dinners.  Do  you  use  your 
dice,  casting  them  in  the  ordinary  manner  in  the  open  air, 
but  let  me  shake  my  false  ones  within  a  vacuum  tube — 
pairs  of  sixes  to  win."  If  he  is  consistent  at  heart — 
scruples  of  conscience  aside — he  should  take  you  up  on 
the  instant.  But  will  he?  Think  the  matter  over. 

Theoretically,  it  would  be  possible  to  extend  the 
original  vacuum-tube  experiment  to  the  other  extreme; 
that  is,  we  may  suppose  the  tube  lengthened  to,  say,  ten 
miles.  In  that  case  the  act  of  falling  would  consume  just 
about  one  minute — surely  not  too  long  to  grant  Nature  a 
fair  chance  to  absolve  herself  from  the  stigma  of  vacil- 
lation that  Newtonians  have  thrust  upon  her.  Inci- 
dentally, we  may  imagine  the  tube  capacious  enough  to 
allow  for  the  introduction  of  suitable  micrometrical  de- 
vices to  record  the  equilibristic  gyrations  of  the  object, 
not  only  at  the  instant  of  alighting,  but  also  in  the  course 
of  descent.  Of  course,  all  this  is  practically  impossible, 
and  if  Nature  must  await  her  vindication  until  such  a 
thing  becomes  practicable,  she  is  likely  to  remain  in  dis- 
grace until  all  human  interest  in  the  issue  has  died  out. 
Fortunately  for  her  and  us,  however,  she  has  thought  to 
set  out  documentary  evidence  of  her  consistency  on  the 
scroll  of  the  sky.  I  refer  to  the  moon.  Why,  do  you 
suppose,  does  our  satellite  continually  turn  the  same  face 
toward  us,  unless  it  is  because  her  visible  hemisphere  is 
the  heavier;  and  why  does  she  exhibit  her  librations,  if 
not  because  of  the  conflicting  attractions  of  the  sun  and  of 
the  Prime  Eesultant? 

Now  conceding — solely  for  the  sake  of  argument, 
however, — that  the  moon  is  really  falling  earthward  at 
the  rate  of  1/19  inch  per  second,  then  the  earth,  being  81 
times  heavier,  must  be  falling  moonward  only  1/171  inch 


122  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

in  the  same  brief  instant.  This  is  tantamount  to  saying 
that  the  earth,  if  falling  moonward  at  all,  is  falling  only 
one  inch  in  about  3  minutes !  Suppose  that  by  some  de- 
vice you  could,  by  manipulating  a  switch,  control  gravi- 
tationally  the  velocity  of  a  loaded  die  in  the  tube  so  that 
it  would  fall  as  slowly  as  this,  thereby  giving  you  ample 
opportunity  to  observe  it  closely,  and  it  abundant  time  to 
adjust  itself, — Do  you  conscientiously  doubt  that  the  die 
would  turn  its  loaded  side  underneath,  just  the  same  as  it 
would  if  sinking  slowly  in  a  glass  of  water  ? 

Here  I  fancy  the  reader  exclaiming,  "But  you  are 
mistaken  in  asserting  that  Newton  predicated  his  conclu- 
sion upon  the  behavior  of  the  individual  object ;  he,  on  the 
contrary,  inferred  it,  and  correctly,  from  the  fact  that  ob- 
jects of  very  diverse  densities,  such  as  a  feather,  cork, 
bullet  and  the  like,  fall  with  exactly  equal  velocity. ' ' 

My  first  reply  to  this  is,  that  when  you  use  the  word 
"exactly"  in  this  connection,  you  display  a  confidence  in 
your  seeing  skill  that  I  am  far  from  feeling  in  my  own. 
For  my  part,  I  think  that  there  is  as  much,  and  more,  un- 
certainty in  correctly  deciding  the  race  between  two 
particles,  such  as  a  long  feather  and  a  tiny  spherical  bul- 
let, traveling  but  a  yard  or  two  of  height  at  great  veloc- 
ity, as  there  is  in  deciding  for  example,  close  plays  at  sec- 
ond base  in  a  professional  game  of  baseball.  Umpires,  at 
least,  know  how  little  dependence  is  to  be  placed  on  the 
visual  judgment  of  the  average  ' i  fan. "  It  is  truly  amaz- 
ing, the  concordance  of  opinion  between  the  umpire  and 
the  crowd,  when  his  decision  favors  the  home  team,  and 
equally  astounding  how  little  that  same  umpire's  judg- 
ment is  respected,  when  he  decides  a  close  play  in  favor 
of  the  visitors.  In  the  case  of  the  particles,  everybody, 
from  Newton  down,  has  been  all  along  betting  on  the  race 
as  a  tie,  with  no  takers,  and  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at 
that  the  verdict  is  enthusiastically  unanimous. 

But  even  admitting  the  cogent  argument  of  "pre- 
ponderant opinion,"  it  is  quite  as  much  of  a  non  sequitur 
to  hold,  that  because  objects  fall  in  vacuo  with  identical 
velocities,  they  individually  repudiate  the  law  of  equili- 
brium, as  it  is  to  assert,  that  a  pellet  of  lead  and  a  pellet 


THE  LAW  OF  EQUILIBRIUM  123 

of  chalk  of  exactly  the  same  size  and  shape,  likewise  fall- 
ing together  in  a  vacuum  tube,  will  strike  the  bottom  with 
equal  force  because  they  are  traveling  with  equal  veloc- 
ities. Two  racers  may  easily  cover  the  specified  distance 
in  unison,  but  that  doesn't  preclude  each  from  balancing 
himself  separately,  or  regulating  the  length  of  his  own 
stride. 

But  even  waiving  all  that  has  gone  before  and  taking 
the  Newtonian  experiment  at  its  face  value,  I  still  take 
exception  to  it,  not  merely  because  it  does  not  reproduce 
the  cosmic  conditions,  which  may  be  excusable,  but  be- 
cause it  does  not  sensibly  parallel  them.  The  Newtonian 
deductions,  in  the  light  of  the  experiment,  may  be  thus 
itemized : 

1.  Objects  in  vacua,  irrespective  of  their  varying 
densities,  fall  with  precisely  equal  velocities. 

2.  Cosmic   bodies    are    only   objects    of   a   larger 
growth,  are  constructively  falling,  and  are  falling  through 
the  void  of  space;  therefore  they,  also,  and  all  their  com- 
ponent molecules  fall  ivith  equal  velocities. 

3.  All  objects,  great  and  small,  thus  falling  in  vacua 
maintain  throughout  their  descent  both  their  initial  in- 
clinations and  their  original  shapes. 

Let  us  try  this  conception  out  by  analyzing  a  simple 
hypothetical  case : 

Imagine,  if  you  please,  that  some  power  should  ar- 
rest the  moon  in  her  orbital  flight,  hold  her  steady  for  a 
moment,  and  then  gently  drop  her.  According  to  New- 
tonians, she  would  fall  in  one  attitude  straight  downward 
to  the  earth,  where  she  would  arrive  in  something  less 
than  a  week's  time.  Suppose,  again,  that  the  same 
power  that  arrested  the  moon  should  at  the  same  moment 
cause  to  spring  into  existence,  round  a  point  just  3,000 
miles  this  side  her  center,  a  globe  of  water  of  exactly  the 
same  mass,  and  that  both  these  moons  were  allowed  to 
drop  simultaneously.  What  would  be  the  result  ?  Were 
we  to  apply  the  reasoning  of  Newton,  as  based  on  his 
aforementioned  experiment,  we  should  have  to  argue 


124  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

somewhat  after  this  fashion.  Here  are  two  large  ' '  ob- 
jects "  falling  together  through  a  vacuum.  They  must 
therefore  fall  with  precisely  the  same  velocity,  preserve 
throughout  their  respective  initial  inclinations  and 
shapes,  retain  their  separate  individualities,  and,  finally, 
strike  the  earth  one  after  the  other.  Or,  as  Ganot  puts  it, 
" Everything  else  being  the  same,  all  bodies,  great  and 
small,  light  and  heavy,  ought  to  fall  with  equal  rapidity, 
and  a  lump  of  sand  without  cohesion  should,  during  its 
fall,  retain  its  original  form  as  perfectly  as  if  it  were 
compact  stone. ' ' 

Such,  I  say,  is  the  solution  tendered  us  by  Newton 
and  his  disciples.  Let  me  now  submit  my  own :  Although 
it  is  quite  true  that  each  of  the  two  moons  is  only  1/81  as 
massive  as  our  planet,  they  are,  on  the  other  hand,  eighty 
times  nearer  each  other  than  their  common  center  of 
gravity  is  to  the  earth.  Let  it  be  remembered,  however, 
that  attraction  varies  directly  as  the  mass,  but  inversely 
as  the  square  of  the  separating  distance,  whence  it 
plainly  follows  that  the  net  attraction  between  the  moons 
is  eighty  times  greater  than  that  between  their  joint  mass 
and  the  earth.  This  condition  would  result  in  a  singular 
thing,  namely:  The  aqueous  ball,  being  solicited  moon- 
ward  far  more  powerfully  than  earthward,  it  would,  for  a 
time,  actually  rise  away  from  the  earth  until  it  should 
meet  the  true  moon  on  her  way  down.  The  impact  of 
such  a  meeting  would,  of  course,  per  se,  deform  both  col- 
liding bodies ;  but  this  would  not  be  the  sole  result.  The 
integral  power  of  attraction  of  the  coalescing  mass  would 
immediately  come  into  play — a  constructive,  as  the  col- 
lision was  a  destructive  force — and  this  would  auto- 
matically remould  the  whole  into  a  globular  form,  in 
which  new  state  the  merged  moons,  continuing  their 
descent,  would  strike  the  planet  as  one. 

Which  of  these  analyses  does  the  reader  prefer,  the 
first  based  on  the  denial  of  the  law  of  equilibrium,  or  the 
second,  founded  on  the  laiv  itself? 

To  sum  up,  then,  it  plainly  appears :  First,  that  the 
unanimous  admission  of  our  modern  scientists  is,  that 
Newton's  theory  of  tides  is  completely  contradicted  by 


THE  LAW  OF  EQUILIBRIUM  125 

the  phenomena ;  second,  that  in  spite  of  its  known  falsity, 
they  nevertheless  universally  teach  and  follow  it  as 
true ;  third,  that  in  spite  of  its  known  falsity,  all  recent 
cosmogonies  are  unconditionally  grounded  upon  it,  and 
hence  must  stand  or  fall  with  it;  fourth,  that  the  con- 
firmed practice  of  our  astronomers  is  to  seek  the  solution 
of  cosmic  problems,  not  by  uncompromising  adherence 
to  strict  natural  laws,  but  by  industriously  searching  for 
loopholes  of  escape  from  it,  not  by  the  legitimate  unfold- 
ing of  the  established  principles  of  terrestrial  mechanics, 
but  by  the  invention  of  a  sort  of  super-mechanics  that 
may  serve  to  admit  the  introduction  of  teleological  ex- 
planations under  the  guise  of  being  natural  and  normal ; 
and,  lastly,  that  the  Law  of  Equilibrium  to  which  Newton 
sought  to  give  quietus,  and  which  his  followers  have  all 
along  believed  dead,  still  survives  to  rule  and  order  the 
universe  of  stars. 

KEPLER'S  LAWS 

Newton  demonstrated  to  the  satisfaction  of  expert 
mathematicians  (who,  by  the  way,  alone  can  follow  and 
comprehend  his  treatise),  that  Kepler's  laws  and  the  law 
of  gravitation  are  in  harmony.  As  the  proponent  of  the 
proposition  that  the  law  of  equilibrium  is  just  as  deeply 
rooted  in  this  great  law  of  gravitation  as  are  Kepler's 
laws,  it  would  seem  to  devolve  upon  me  to  establish, 
mathematically,  the  essential  identity  of  all  three.  I  shall 
therefore  make  the  attempt : 

The  reader  will  remember  that  I  recognize  three 
sorts  of  gravitational  units,  namely;  (1)  a  simple  body, 
like  the  moon;  (2)  a  compound  body,  like  the  binary 
earth-moon  system,  and  (3)  a  complex  body,  consisting  of 
a  multitude  of  planets  and  satellites,  all  balancing  them- 
selves around  their  common  center  of  gravity.  More- 
over, I  define  a  gravitational  unit  as  a  single  body,  or  a 
congeries  of  cosmic  bodies,  seeking  its  lowest  center  of 
gravity.  The  proposition  I  am  now  going  to  try  to  prove 
is,  that  our  solar  system  is  a  family  of  such  bodies  so  in- 
timately associated  with  each  other,  by  virtue  of  their 


126  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

mutual  attractions,  and  so  distantly  removed  from  the 
stars  in  general,  as  to  behave  as  a  consolidated  mass  in 
this :  that,  while  in  the  act  of  falling  in  the  direction  of 
the  resultant  of  the  stellar  attractions,  they  seek  their 
common  systemal  center  of  gravity  and  revolve  around 
each  other  according  to  the 

LAW  OF  THE  LEVER  OR  BALANCE  ARM 

It  is  a  fact  already  well  recognized  by  astronomers, 
that  the  moon  does  not  revolve  around  the  center  of  the 
earth,  but  around  the  center  of  gravity  of  their  joint 
mass,  and  that  a  similar  principle  holds  good  of  the 
planets  with  respect  to  the  sun.  So  far,  then,  the  princi- 
ple of  the  balance  arm  has  been  scientifically  accepted. 
But  this  knowledge  does  not  dispose  of  the  riddle  as  to 
why  these  bodies  rotate  at  all ;  it  does  not  explain  the  im- 
pulsion that  lay,  or  lies,  behind  those  tangential  or  cen- 
trifugal motions,  nor  does  it  point  out  what  keeps  them 
going.  My  conception  is,  that  the  orbital  movements  of 
the  circulating  bodies  is  due  to  their  act  of  falling  at  the 
command  of  the  Prime  Eesultant,  and  that  instead  of 
falling  down  in  straight  lines,  as  they  would  do  were  their 
mutual  attractions  dissolved,  they  fall  with  a  spiral  twist 
that  carries  them  perpetually  round  and  round  their  com- 
mon center  of  gravity.  In  short,  the  solar  system,  I  hold, 
is  an  immense  clock  driven  by  its  own  descending  weight. 

In  order  to  get  as  clear  a  notion  as  possible  of  the 
torsional  effects  of  the  stellar  attractive  forces,  let  us  re- 
call the  little  laboratory  experiment  we  tried  before  with 
the  yardstick  and  the  strings.  But  suppose  now,  that 
instead  of  using  the  ring,  you  twist  the  strings  round  and 
round  one  another  at  the  point  where  the  ring  was,  and 
then  do  you  and  I  pull  as  before.  In  such  case,  the  rod 
will  be  seen  to  make  numerous  revolutions,  as  many,  in- 
deed, as  there  were  windings  to  the  strings. 

Now,  it  is  impossible  for  us,  here  on  earth,  to  repro- 
duce in  all  respects  an  imitation  of  the  gyrations  of  the 
solar  system  in  free  space.  We  are  endowed,  however, 
with  human  intelligence,  which  ought  to  enable  us  to  rea- 
son these  things  out  for  ourselves.  Imagine,  then,  two 


THE  LAW  OF  EQUILIBRIUM  127 

stars  away  off  by  themselves  in  space,  yet  near  enough  to 
each  other  to  constitute  them  a  binary  system.  Now 
visualize  to  yourself,  if  you  please,  the  rays  of  gravita- 
tional attraction  proceeding  from  all  the  stars  in  the  uni- 
verse, and  from  all  sides,  to  each  one  of  our  pair  of  stars 
in  turn,  and  you  cannot  but  see  that  the  two  systems  of 
rays  thus  produced  cross  each  other  much  as  did  the  two 
cords  within  the  ring,  only  far  more  complicatedly.  We 
may  fancy  the  whole  field  of  stars  as  divided  into  suc- 
cessive pairs  and  tugging  upon  their  respective  cords, 
and  we  shall  have,  as  nearly  as  may  be,  a  copy  of  the  ex- 
periment in  question — except  in  one  particular.  This 
particular  consists  in  the  fact  that  the  stellar  strands,  al- 
though eternally  pulling,  always  stay  crossed ;  though  al- 
ways unwinding,  they  never  become  unwound.  Thus  does 
our  binary  system  not  only  fall  to  the  maximal  attraction, 
but  also  in  a  definite  direction;  the  while  simultaneously 
revolving  around  its  center  of  gravity. 

This  mechanical  principle  is  capable  of  unlimited  ex- 
tension, upward  and  downward.  It  applies  as  well  to 
molecules  as  to  stars,  to  cohering  particles  as  well  as  to 
cosmic  orbs  separated  by  the  full  span  of  the  universe. 
The  sun's  next  door  neighbor  is  Alpha  Centauri,  ten 
thousand  times  farther  from  him  than  Neptune,  his  outer- 
most planet.  Think  of  these  two  stars  as  we  thought  of 
the  previous  pair,  think  of  any  pair  of  stars,  or  of  any 
combination  of  pairs  or  clusters  of  stars,  in  their  relation 
to  the  sum  of  the  universe,  and  there  will  be  borne  in  upon 
you  the  realization  that  the  whole  body  of  the  macrocosm 
is  perpetually  writhing  within  itself  in  the  throes  of 
equilibristic  evolution.  The  physical  universe  is  built  on 
the  principle  of  action,  not  stagnation ;  on  that  of  autom- 
atism, not  blind  chance ;  on  perpetuity,  not  finiteness. 

Concentrating  our  attention  on  the  solar  system,  we 
note  that  the  planets  revolve  around  the  sun  in  (seeming) 
ellipses,  that  their  radii  vectores  sweep  over  equal  areas 
in  equal  times,  and  that  the  cubes  of  their  distances  are 
proportional  to  the  squares  of  their  periodic  times.  The 
problem  before  us  is  to  prove  that  these  phenomena  are 
incidental  to  the  normal  operation  of  the  principle  of  the 


128  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

lev er — but,  mark  you,  not  of  a  stationary  lever,  but  of  one 
whose  pendent  weights  are  in  the  act  of  falling. 

To  begin  with,  what  is  the  principle  of  the  simple 
lever  or  balance  arm?  It  is  this:  Suppose  a  bar  to  be 
supported  on  a  pivot  so  as  to  rotate  in  a  horizontal  plane, 
then,  in  order  that  its  arms,  if  unequal  in  length,  shall 
balance,  the  weights  at  the  ends  must  be  inversely  pro- 
portional to  those  lengths.  That  is  to  say,  if  one  of  the 
arms  be  half  the  length  of  the  other,  the  weight  on  the 
shorter  end  must  be  doubled,  if  one-third  the  length, 
trebled,  and  so  on. 

And  what  are  the  laws  of  falling  bodies?  These  are 
given  by  Ganot  (Art.  49)  in  these  words: 

1.  The  velocities  are  proportional  to  the  times  dur- 
ing which  the  motion  has  lasted. 

2.  The  spaces   described  are  proportional  to   the 
squares  of  the  times  employed  in  their  description. 

3.  The  spaces   described  are   proportional   to   the 
squares  of  the  velocities  acquired  during  their  descrip- 
tion. 

4.  The  spaces  described  in  equal  successive  periods 
of  time  increase  by  a  constant  quantity. 

Suppose  a  bar,  whose  longer  arm  we  shall  call  R  and 
its  shorter  r,  be  rotated  horizontally  around  a  stationary 
pivot,  it  will  then  descibe  two  circles^  and,  by  geometry, 
we  get  the  equation, 

r  :R  ::2*r  :2-xR  (1) 

By  our  hypothesis,  however,  the  pivot  is  not  station- 
ary, but  is  falling,  and  the  ends  of  the  bar  are  not  describ- 
ing closed  circles  in  fact,  but  coils  of  open  spirals.  In 
still  other  words,  the  last  two  terms  of  our  equation  are, 
properly  construed,  "heights  fallen  through."  Under 
the  second  rule  given  above,  then,  our  last  two  terms,  in 
order  to  express  the  element  of  time  instead  of  space, 
must  be  amended  to  read 

Vy^F;  V171T  (2) 


THE  LAW  OF  EQUILIBKIUM  129 

At  this  point,  let  us  not  forget  that  we  are  not  dealing 
with  a  simple  bar,  but  with  a  lever,  whose  arms,  in  order 
that  they  may  balance,  must  be  weighted  inversely  as 
their  length;  that  is  to  say,  a  weight  R  must  be  attached 
to  the  end  of  arm  r,  and  a  weight  r  to  the  end  of  arm  R. 
Pound  for  pound,  then,  the  time  required  to  complete  the 
running  of  the  smaller  coil  as  compared  with  that  re- 
quired for  the  larger  is  inversely  in  the  proportion  of 
R  :  r.  Amending  our  last  equation,  then,  a  second  time, 
we  get  for  the  ratio  of  the  "periodic  times"  of  our  two 
weights  (or  planets) 


A/~O  ~^      (3)     whence,  (parts  of  circles  being 

7T  /  V     fC  TT  JL\J  ,          ,  ,  ,  , 

.  to  each  other  as  their 


—         . 

like  parts) 

r  V^*  R  V^  (4)  meaning, 

The  periodic  times  of  planetary  bodies  are  to  each 
other  as  their  respective  orbital  radii  (distances)  into 
the  square  roots  of  those  radii. 

Notice  that  this  gives  the  ratio  of  the  simple  periodic 
times,  not  the  ratio  of  their  squares,  which  is  logically 
better  ;  but  if  you  wish  to  identify  the  ratio  with  Kepler's 
law,  all  you  need  do  is  to  square  the  separate  terms,  thus  : 

r2  r  :R2R  or  (5) 

rz  :  Rs  q.  e.  d.    (6) 

Again,  since  under  the  third  law  given  above,  veloci- 
ties are  proportional  to  the  square  roots  of  the  heights 
(here  circumferences,  or  orbits),  they  are  necessarily  pro- 
portional in  like  manner  with  respect  to  the  radii,  or  as 

V^:  y~R  (7) 

But  do  not  forget  that  these  velocities  are  inversely  pro- 
portional to  the  size  of  the  weights  carried,  whence 

Ry7~:r~  V~]R~  (8)  meaning, 

The  velocities  of  planets  are  proportional  to  their 
respective  distances  into  the  square  roots  of  their  OP- 
POSITES. 


130  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 


THE  LAW  OF  GRAVITATION 

With  this  formula  (8)  before  us,  it  is  easy  to  derive 
the  law  of  gravitation,  gravitation  being  a  form  of 
ENERGY.  Energy  being  proportional  to  the  square  of  the 
velocities,  we  have,  then, 

R*r:r2R  (9) 

Now,  there  is  this  further  rule  regarding  energy  of 
motion,  namely,  that  it  varies  directly  as  the  load,  and,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  heavier  load  on  a  balanced  lever  is  at 
the  end  of  the  shorter  arm.  "We  therefore  multiply  the 
first  term  by  K  and  the  second  by  r,  obtaining, 

R*  r  :  r3  R,  or,  (10) 

R2:r2          q.e.d.    (11) 

Which  is  the  law  of  gravitation  itself,  namely,  that  the 
energy  of  planets'  motions  varies  inversely  as  the  squares 
of  the  radii  (distances).  This  method  really  gives  the 
centrifugal  force,  but  as  the  centripetal  is,  by  the  law  of 
reaction,  its  equal,  the  expression  given  is  true  for  both. 

THE  LAW  OF  AREAS 

Kepler's  second  law  declares  that  the  radius  vector 
sweeps  over  equal  areas  in  equal  times.  This  can  be 
proven,  on  the  principle  of  the  falling  lever,  in  this  way : 

Suppose  a  planet  to  describe  a  certain  arc  at  peri- 
helion in  the  space  of  one  hour  and,  later  on,  an  arc  at  any 
other  part  of  its  orbit,  say  aphelion,  in  a  like  space  of 
time.  Regarding  the  arcs  thus  described  as  arcs  of 
circles,  and  the  differing  distances  as  radii,  r  and  R,  the 
arcs,  geometrically,  will  be  in  the  ratio  of 

r:R  (12) 

We  are  not  dealing  with  plain  circles,  however,  but  with 
the  rotations  of  a  lever.  According  to  this  principle, 
what  is  gained  in  power  is  lost  in  velocity,  and  vice  versa. 
Moving  the  planet  out  to  aphelion,  therefore,  modifies  the 


THE  LAW  or  EQUILIBRIUM  131 

equilibristic  lengths  of  the  arcs  described  in  the  inverse 
ratio  of  the  radii,  hence  the  arcs  become, 

Rr:Rr  (13) 

But  the  arcs  thus  related  are  not  plain  distances,  but 
heights,  through  which  the  weights  (which  in  the  present 
instance  are  equal,  being,  indeed,  the  same  planet)  are 
falling;  hence  we  now  find  the  opposite  arcs  to  be  propor- 
tional, dynamically,  thus 

\r~W  :  V~Kr  (14) 

But,  by  geometry,  the  areas  of  circles  are  as  the  squares 
of  their  circumferences  or  of  their  like  arcs.  In  our  ratio 
we  have  what  we  may  correctly  describe  as  dynamical 
arcs,  incorporating  within  them,  as  they  here  should,  the 
ideas  of  geometrical  relationship,  equilibrium,  and  accel- 
erative  motion.  Squaring  the  terms,  then,  we  get, 

Rr  :  Rr  q.  e.  d.      (15),  meaning, 

that  the  areas  of  the  respective  segments  at  perihelion 
and  at  aphelion  covered  in  equal  times  are  equal.  Of 
course  the  rule  holds  good  whatever  parts  of  the  orbit  be 
compared. 

Kepler's  first  law,  namely,  that  planets  travel  in  el- 
lipses, is  true  only  in  the  most  superficial  of  senses.  It 
is  not  true  geometrically,  dynamically,  philosophically,  or 
actually.  Planets  travel,  instead,  in  open  elliptical 
spirals  of  an  exceedingly  complicated  design.  Astron- 
omers, indeed,  acknowledge  that  the  orbits  are  not  re- 
entering,  inasmuch  as  the  translation  of  the  sun  is  well 
established;  but  thej-  assume  that,  even  if  the  sun  were 
stationary,  the  planets  would,  nevertheless,  continue  re- 
volving, and  that  these  orbits  would  then  veritably  be 
closed  curves.  They  picture  the  sun  as  possessing  a 
unique  rectilinear  motion  not  primevally  shared  by  his 
planets,  and  that  the  reason  they  accompany  him  is  be- 
cause he  is  dragging  them  along  as  a  horse  does  a  vehicle, 
whether  or  no.  Thus  have  the  Newtonians,  in  a  way  be- 
come habitual  with  them,  underestimated  the  most  signifi- 
cant and  potential  facts  of  the  cosmos,  facts,  too,  gained 
by  their  own  herculean  labor  and  expense. 


132  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

Even  though  the  bores,  or  calibers,  of  planetary 
spirals  admittedly  exhibit  elliptical  curvatures,  the  fact 
conveys  little  hint  of  the  dynamical  agencies  concerned  in 
their  generation.  Profoundly  interpreted,  each  infinites- 
imal arc  in  each  and  every  one  of  the  planetary-  and 
satellite  spirals  is  a  coordinated  resultant  of  the  equili- 
bristic  adjustments  of  the  aggregate  system;  that  is  to 
say,  every  movement  and  turn  of  movement  of  the  planets 
is  a  concomitant  effect  of  each  member  balancing  itself 
against  all  the  rest.  The  solar  system,  in  fine,  is  essen- 
tially a  revolving,  composite  lever.  To  preserve  the  com- 
mon equilibrium,  when  one  member  moves  out  from  the 
sun  another  or  others  must,  perforce,  move  in,  and  vice 
versa.  These  compensations  automatically  follow  from 
the  principle  of  balance,  and  extend  to  every  part,  even 
to  the  molecules  and  atoms  that  hang  suspended  in  space ; 
even,  indeed,  to  the  ether  itself,  if  it  be  amenable  to  grav- 
ity. These  compensating  pulsations  of  the  planets  in  and 
out  from  center  have  not  escaped  the  keen  eyes  of  astron- 
omers, and  have  led  to  the  empiricism  and  near-truth  that 
the  moment  of  momentum  of  the  system  preserves  its  uni- 
formity. Unknowing  the  dynamical  cause  behind  the 
phenomenon,  they  construe  it  as  a  teleological  ordination, 
and  point  to  it  as  the  unimpeachable  evidence  of  the  so- 
called  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of  energy. 

The  fact  that  the  planets  have  accommodated  them- 
selves all  to  practically  one  plane  (that  is,  to  a  position  of 
' ' flatness "),  which,  as  I  have  shown  before,  is  the  condi- 
tion of  maximum  stability,  joined  to  that  other  significant 
fact  that  their  orbits  are  near-circles,  demonstrates 
either ;  first,  that  the  planets  are  direct  offsprings  of  the 
sun,  or,  second,  that  they  have  been  members  of  the  sys- 
tem so  inconceivably  long  as  to  be  in  effect  indigenous  to 
it.  It  is  otherwise  with  the  comets  and  many  of  the  as- 
teroids, whose  eccentricities  of  elongated  orbits,  high  in- 
clinations and  retrograde  motions  are  so  many  unmistak- 
able proofs  of  their  alien  parentage  and  comparatively 
recent  immigration.  Like  the  bubble  of  a  spirit  level 
when  first  applied  in  test,  a  comet  takes  a  series  of  pulsa- 


THE  LAW  or  EQUILIBRIUM  133 

tions  across  the  field  of  equilibrism  before  attaining  the 
state  of  relative  rest  that  belongs  to  perfect  balance. 

THE  PATH  OF  THE  SUN 

Sir  William  Herschel  (1738-1822),  the  illustrious  dis- 
coverer of  the  planet  Uranus,  was  the  first  to  indicate  the 
proximate  point  in  the  heavens  toward  which  the  sun  is 
tending.  That  point  astronomers  refer  to  as  the  apex  of 
the  sun's  way  and  now  (erroneously)  declare  it  to  be  "in 
the  direction  of  the  constellation  Hercules,  about  10° 
southwest  of  the  star  Vega" — not  many  degrees,  indeed, 
from  where  Herschel  himself  located  it.  Since  Herschel's 
day,  numerous  astronomers  have  adopted  this  particular 
field  of  research  as  their  life-work,  and  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  dollars  have  been  expended  in  one  form  and 
another  in  this  quest.  Every  labor  of  great  magnitude 
such  as  this  is  should  have  behind  it  an  adequate  motive. 
Has  this  inquiry  such  a  motive  I 

It  is  a  lamentable  thing  to  have  to  say,  but  the  truth 
should  out,  that  from  the  first  day  to  the  last  that  this 
search  has  lasted,  scientists  have  had  no  motive  other 
than  merely  to  ascertain  the  bare  isolated  fact,  entertain- 
ing neither  plan,  expectation,  or  hope  that  the  knowledge 
will,  or  by  any  possibility  ever  can,  prove  structurally 
useful.  Herschel  has  been  dead  for  nearly  a  century,  yet 
in  all  these  years,  for  all  the  efforts  made  to  reduce  to  ex- 
actness what  he  only  adumbrated,  there  does  not  appear 
to  have  been  a  single  illuminating  suggestion  put  forward 
as  to  how  the  knowledge  might  one  day  be  made  helpful 
in  the  upbuilding  of  the  science,  be  that  knowledge  as  ex- 
act as  ever  it  may. 

Newtonians  rely  on  the  fundamental  sophism  that 
the  motions  of  cosmic  bodies  are  self -existent ;  that  they 
are  no  more  susceptible  of  explanation  than  matter's  ex- 
istence. Of  our  sun  they  say,  simply,  that  he  moves. 
They  do  not  ask  why  he  moves,  for  that  riddle  they  gave 
up  from  the  start,  supinely  supposing  it  beyond  the  reach 
of  human  penetration.  All  they  dare  to  ask,  or  tolerate 
others  asking  is,  ' '  How  fast  and  in  what  direction  is  he 


134  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

moving?"  for  this  question  involves  no  radical  innova- 
tion which  might  in  the  end  spell  disaster  to  their 
cherished  prejudices.  It  seems  self-evident  enough  to  me 
that  the  Newtonians,  in  denying  the  causation  of  the 
sun's  motion,  and  in  asserting,  with  ever  increasing  as- 
surance and  solemnity,  that  his  course  through  the  ether 
is  unique,  random,  and  uncontrolled  by  any  organic  uni- 
fying law,  are  guilty  of  a  grave  folly  and  are  needlessly 
renouncing  in  advance  the  choice  fruits  of  their  arduous 
labors.  The  only  conceivable  value  the  knowledge  of  the 
sun's  course  and  velocity  can  have  to  science  and  human- 
ity, lies  in  its  possible  far-reaching  correlations,  in  its 
constructive  potentialities.  A  sun  moving,  as  they  as- 
sert, randomly,  unimpelled,  and  undirected,  can  have, 
per  se,  no  correlations  and  no  structural  significance 
whatsoever. 

For  all  that,  the  practical  astronomers,  fired  by  the 
passion  for  physical  accuracy  for  its  own  sake,  are  every 
day  planning  on  an  ever  more  and  more  ambitious  scale 
to  go  over  the  same  ground  again  and  again,  without  any 
definite  object  in  mind,  it  seems,  save  to  see  how  near  they 
may  come  to  the  previous  marks.  There  is  no  way  to 
test  their  accuracy,  so  far  as  they  are  aware,  by  final  ar- 
bitrament of  Nature,  but  only  by  indecisive  comparison 
of  their  own  results  with  those  previously  announced. 
In  any  case,  all  their  labor  goes  for  naught  as  long  as 
their  architects,  the  theorists,  neglect  and  refuse  to  re- 
form their  ground  plans  so  as  to  give  structural  place  to 
the  plethora  of  facts  (never  anticipated  by  the  original 
architect,  Newton)  now  promisculously  encumbering  the 
ground.  Whatever  incentives  one  may  have  to  remain- 
ing unpersuaded,  it  must  be  patent  to  all  that  a  radical 
reformation  of  astronomical  theory  has  become  impera- 
tive. What  more  likely  way,  I  ask,  than  by  giving  to  the 
phrase  "UNIVERSAL  gravitation"  its  plenary  significance 
and  genuinely  universal  applications  ? 

The  principle  of  the  gyroscope  is  too  well  recognized 
to  require  extended  discussion  in  this  place.  Eotation  in 
one  direction  around  an  axis,  under  the  law  of  action  and 
reaction,  must,  and  as  a  matter  of  everyday  mechanics 


THE  LAW  OF  EQUILIBRIUM  135 

does,  generate  a  reverse  movement  of  the  rotating  mass 
in  a  larger  circle  around  an  extraneous  point  or  axis.  We 
are  not  merely  hypothesising,  then,  when  we  predicate 
that  the  solar  system,  because  of  its  integral  rotation 
around  an  axis  within  the  sun's  mass,  has  a  secondary 
motion  of  precession  around  just  such  an  extraneous 
axis.  Whether  we  can  prove  the  deduction  by  an  appeal 
to  celestial  phenomena  remains  to  be  seen,  but  the  prin- 
ciple itself  is  not  to  be  disputed. 

Before  stating  conclusions,  let  me  try  to  picture  to 
the  mind's  eye  of  the  patient  reader  the  relation,  as  I 
conceive  it,  of  the  sun's  orbit  to  the  plane  of  the  ecliptic, 
the  Vertex,  the  pole  of  the  ecliptic,  the  geographksal  pole, 
and  the  precessional  circle. 

Imagine,  if  you  please,  an  enormous  cone  suspended 
in  space,  inverted,  with  an  apical  angle  of  47°,  and  its  up- 
turned circular  base,  level  with  the  ecliptic,  possessing  a 
diameter  on  the  order  of  a  thousand  times  the  distance  of 
Uranus  from  the  sun.  (See  Fig.  4).  Call  the  central 
point  of  this  base  (whose  circumference  constitutes  the 
sun's  gyroscopic  orbit)  the  Centrum  and  from  it  drop  a 
plummet  to  the  apex  of  the  cone  some  two  trillion  miles 
below,  and  call  the  plumb-line  the  cone 's  axis.  Now  this 
apex,  be  it  understood,  is  the  Vertex,  as  previously  de- 
fined ;  that  is  to  say  it  is  the  (blank)  point  in  space  toward 
which  the  earth  (and  our  system)  is  being  caused  to  fall 
by  the  composite  of  the  stellar  attractions — the  Prime 
Eesultant. 


136  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 


THE  SOLAR  ORBIT 

EXPLANATION: — On  account  of  the  immense  disparity  in 
the  dimensions,  it  is  impossible  to  draw  this  figure  to  scale. 
Its  purpose  is  to  illustrate  the  relation  of  the  earth's  axial 
inclination  and  her  general  movements  with  reference  to  the 
sun  and  his  orbit.  The  large  circle  is,  of  course,  the  Ant- 
arctic Circle  of  our  Gravisphere  and  represents  the  sun's 
path,  or  rather  the  path  of  the  center  of  gravity  of  his 
system.  The  next  smaller  circle  denotes  the  orbit  of  the 
earth,  but  relatively  enormously  magnified.  Arrow-heads  in 
all  the  circles  indicate  the  direction  of  movement.  The 
positions  A,  A1,  A2,  A3  show  the  earth  at  the  instant  of  her 
vernal  equinox,  B,  B1,  B2,  B3  at  our  summer  solstice,  and  so 
on.  The  celestial  point  of  vernal  equinox  is  found  by  sight- 
ing through  the  center  of  the  sun  from  the  center  of  the 
earth  at  the  positions  A,  A1,  A2,  A8.  Unfortunately,  however, 
owing  to  the  fact  that  the  sun's  center  is  less  steady  in  its 
course  than  the  center  of  gravity  of  his  system,  the  data  of 
observation  are  not  as  consistent  as  they  otherwise  would  be. 
The  letter  C  denotes  the  center  (Centrum)  of  the  solar  orbit 
and  V  the  Vertex,  the  latter,  however,  needing  to  be  pictured, 
not  in  the  plane  of  the  paper  but  about  five  inches  behind  it. 
Here  the  orbit  is  shown  as  a  closed  curve,  whereas  in  reality 
it  is  a  spiral.  To  obtain  the  correct  conception  the  book 
should  be  held  horizontally  and  then  slowly  lowered  away 
from  the  eye,  at  the  same  time  imagining  the  rotatory  move- 
ments as  in  progress.  Note  that  our  view  is  from  a  point 
south  of  the  ecliptic. 


THE  LAW  OF  EQUILIBRIUM 


137 


138 FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

Station  yourself  in  fancy  vertically  over  (south  of) 
the  Centrum,  but  far  enough  away  to  obtain  a  bird's-eye 
view  of  the  whole  base  of  our  imaginary  cone  clear  to  the 
circumference.  Thus  situated  you  are  looking  straight 
down  upon  the  ecliptic  and,  sighting  along  the  axis  of  the 
cone,  you  see  the  Vertex,  or  what  is  the  same  thing,  its 
place,  projected  upon  the  far  distant  background  of  the 
northern  sky.  Mark  that  point  and  chart  it  well,  for  it 
is  what  astronomers  call  the  "pole  of  the  ecliptic". 

Leave  your  position  now  and  with  the  winged  and  un- 
tiring feet  of  imagination  run  the  circuit  of  the  cone's 
base,  gazing  the  while  constantly  down  along  the  funneled 
sides  of  the  cone,  and  on  through  the  Vertex  as  before, 
watching  carefully  its  new  projection  on  the  celestial 
sphere.  This  time,  of  course,  the  sky  point  of  the  Vertex 
will  not  remain  fixed,  but  will  move  with  your  movement, 
and  since  you  are  running  a  circuit  it  will  trace  a  cycle  on 
the  sky.  More  than  this,  inasmuch  as,  by  description,  the 
apical  angle  of  our  cone  is  47°,  the  radius  of  the  celestial 
cycle  will  be  just  half,  or  23%  ° — the  same  as  the  inclina- 
tion of  the  earth's  axis;  and  its  center  will,  of  course,  be 
the  so-called  pole  of  the  ecliptic.  The  Vertex,  therefore, 
you  see,  is,  in  a  very  significant  sense,  at  once  the  pole  of 
the  ecliptic  and  the  geographical  pole,  but  it  will  not  do  to 
confuse  it  with  the  celestial  points  recognized  by  the 
astronomers.  I  suggest  the  name  Gravitational  pole  as 
both  descriptive  and  consistent  with  its  dual  character. 
Being  the  gravitational  pole,  the  earth  must,  of  course, 
perennially  turn  her  center  of  gravity  steadily  toward  it 
and,  as  a  companion  of  the  sun  in  his  great  orbital  jour- 
ney, keep  her  axis  constantly  parallel  with  the  sloping 
sides  of  the  cone,  so  that  were  her  axis  a  hollow  tube  and 
your  eye  peering  through  it  from  the  south  end,  you  could 
always  keep  the  place  of  the  Vertex  in  your  field  of  view 
and  watch  its  projection  upon  the  celestial  sphere  in  the 
form  of — the  circle  of  precession. 

To  round  out  that  circle  requires,  according  to  latest 
estimates,  and  provided  the  sun's  velocity  remain  uni- 
form, 25,810  years.  Although  hitherto  attributed  to  false 
causes,  this  circle  traced  on  the  heavens  by  the  earth's 


THE  LAW  OF  EQUILIBRIUM  139 

axis  extended  is  a  phenomenon  known  from  the  time  of 
Hipparchus  (150  B.  C.).  Important  to  remember  is,  that 
it  is  executed  contrary  to  the  motion  of  the  hands  of  a 
clock,  differing  in  this  respect  from  the  internal  motions 
of  our  system,  which  are  just  the  other  way.  You  need 
to  remember  this  when  looking  down,  from  the  south,  up- 
on the  cone  base.  Thus  placed,  picture  the  sun  as  revolv- 
ing around  this  base  contra-clockwise,  because,  as  yon 
will  see  on  reflection,  this  movement  will  cause  the  Vertex, 
which  serves  as  the  common  apex  of  two  cones,  to  seem 
to  revolve  in  the  same  sense.  However,  this  will  be  true, 
that  the  "longitudes"  of  the  two  arcs  thus  being  simul- 
taneously described  will  be  180°  apart,  a  circumstance  of 
considerable  value  in  orientating  the  position  of  the  sun 
with  respect  to  the  stars,  especially  those  nearest.  Stu- 
pendous as  the  sun's  orbit  is — upwards  of  four  million, 
million  miles  in  length — his  tether  of  about  one-sixth  this 
amount  is  still  very  far  from  reaching  to  even  the  nearest 
star.  Whether  we  regard  the  Vertex  or  the  Centrum  as 
the  solar  hitching-post,  it  is  a  blank  and  not  a  star.  For 
centuries  astronomers  have  been  scanning  the  heavens  in 
search  of  an  eligible  star — Canopus,  Arcturus,  Alcyone, 
Orion,  or  even  a  cluster  of  stars — to  tie  the  universe  to, 
never  once  considering  that  the  latter 's  composite  attrac- 
tion is  stronger,  surer,  more  flexible  than  that  of  any  of 
its  individual  parts  and,  withal,  invisible. 

Here  you  may  interpose  the  objection  that  the  solar 
system  instead  of  circling  the  base  of  the  cone  should  be 
found  at  the  Centrum.  But  your  objection,  to  my  mind, 
is  not  sound.  According  to  my  hypothesis,  the  solar  sys- 
tem must  retreat,  in  obedience  to  the  principle  of  the  gy- 
roscope, and  how  could  it  possibly  comply  save  by  leaving 
its  place?  For  the  sake  of  definiteness,  imagine  the  sun 
originally  stationed  at  the  Centrum,  and  then  fancy  the 
rotation  of  the  system  to  begin  around  its  own  axis.  By 
my  hypothesis,  this  integral  rotation  would  automatically 
cause  a  recoil  wrhich  would  carry  the  sun  a  little  away 
from  the  center.  The  process  thus  begun,  it  would  rapidly 
develope  and  steadily  gain  strength,  the  internal  rotation 
would  accelerate,  and  with  that  acceleration  would  come  a 


140  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

corresponding  increase  in  the  gyroscopic  momentum  (i.  e. 
centrifugal  motion)  and  a  consequent  spreading  out  of 
the  circle — to  what  extent  Nature,  herself,  tells. 

The  whole  proceeding  may  be  likened  to  the  action  of 
a  boy's  peg-top,  except  that  in  one  case  the  phenomenon 
starts  from  a  state  of  rest  and  thereafter  grows,  while  in 
the  case  of  the  top  the  reverse  is  true.  When  first 
thrown,  as  everybody  well  knows,  the  top  does  not  settle 
at  once  on  one  spot,  but  gyrates  at  the  outset  in  a  widish 
circle,  which  gradually  narrows  until  the  peg  seemingly 
becomes  glued  to  one  spot.  Note,  if  you  please,  the  in- 
clination of  the  top  in  these  introductory  gyrations.  Its 
axis  extended  does  not  remain  parallel  to  itself,  but  trims 
out  a  cone,  whose  apex  lies  some  distance  below  the  floor, 
vertically  under  the  central  point  of  these  exursions.  Our 
earth  is  essentially  a  great  top.  While  rotating  on  its 
axis  it  is  likewise,  as  a  member  of  the  sun 's  great  system, 
revolving  around  with  him  in  his  orbit,  keeping  her  axis 
ever  pointed  toward  the  Vertex  (the  point  below  the  floor, 
of  the  ecliptic)  and  trimming  out  its  great  cone  once  every 
(let  us  cling  to  round  numbers)  260  centuries. 

This  is  an  appropriate  place  to  emphasize  again  the 
fundamental  distinction  between  Newton's  explanation 
of  precession  and  my  own.  Inasmuch  as  he  had  no  physi- 
cal ground  for  postulating  the  solar  motion  (a  fact  which 
was  not  really  substantiated  until  a  century  and  more 
after  his  death),  he  was  obliged  to  treat  the  solar  system 
as  stationary  and  the  earth,  too,  as  stationary,  in  a  cer- 
tain sense.  In  his  mind  the  earth's  precessional  oscillation 
resembles  the  top's  behavior  when,  after  spinning  for  a 
long  time  on  one  identical  spot,  it  begins  to  nod  and 
wobble  before  finally  falling  over  upon  its  side.  It  is 
true  that  he  did  not  attribute  this  nutation  to  loss  of 
momentum,  but  to  the  differential  attractions  of  the  sun 
and  moon  upon  the  equatorial  ring.  Nevertheless,  every- 
one must  perceive  that  the  causes  Newton  assigned  were 
diurnally,  monthly,  and  annually  complete;  and  it  was 
highly  inadmissible  for  him  to  assume  out  of  hand  that 
the  effects  could  be  otherwise  than  swiftly  cyclical  to  cor- 


THE  LAW  OF  EQUILIBRIUM  141 

respond.  Obviously,  my  conception  of  the  gyroscopic 
orbit  steers  clear  of  Newton's  error  and  accords  perfectly 
with  the  protracted  character  of  the  phenomenon  in  ques- 
tion. 

Having  thus  carefully  studied  each  feature  in  detail, 
let  me  request  the  kind  reader  to  station  himself  again  at 
his  old  vantage  point  vertically  above  (south  of)  the  Cen- 
trum and  take  a  comprehensive  view  of  the  w^hole  plan. 
There  you  see  the  sun  (more  specifically,  the  center  of 
gravity  of  the  system)  pursuing  his  gyroscopic  course 
exactly  along  the  rim  of  the  cone 's  base,  in  a  direction 
contrary  to  the  motion  of  the  hands  of  the  clock.  As  thus 
he  travels,  his  planets  continuously  revolve  around  him, 
the  earth  in  365%  days,  and  the  other  planets  in  their 
different  periods — not  with  the  left-hand  motion  of  the 
sun,  but  vice  versa.  Note,  also,  that  the  axis  of  the  earth 
always  parallels  the  sides  of  the  cone,  so  that,  no  matter 
at  what  point  she  may  be  in  the  big  orbit,  her  axis  con- 
tinually maintains  its  inclination  to  the  ecliptic  or  cone- 
base  of  231/2°  sensibly  unaltered.  In  thus  swinging 
around  a  great  circle,  while  all  the  time  pointing  to  a 
(relatively)  fixed  point,  to-wit,  the  Vertex,  the  latter  is 
projected  against  the  celestial  sphere  where  it  outlines  the 
precessional  circle,  which  is,  in  fact,  the  base  of  another 
cone,  reversed,  whose  apex  our  Vertex  is  also. 

So  minute  is  the  range  of  the  annual  revolution  of  the 
earth  around  the  sun  relatively  to  the  major  orbit  of  the 
latter,  that  you  can  readily  see  why  the  earth's  axis, 
year  by  year,  should  remain  (almost)  parallel  to  itself, 
the  secret  of  our  change  of  seasons.  The  slight  departure 
from  parallel  that  it  does,  suffer  in  one  such  revolution  is, 
of  course,  according  to  the  new  hypothesis,  reflected  in 
the  alteration  of  the  projected  position  of  the  Vertex  on 
the  precessional  circle  traced  on  the  sky. 

Observe,  furthermore,  that  in  revolving  around  the 
sun,  the  earth  is  obliged  to  pass  twice  each  year  across 
the  precise  line  of  his  path,  once  in  front  of  him,  when 
she  is  on  her  way  out,  and  the  second  time  behind  him, 
when  she  is  on  her  way  in.  The  first  of  these  two  points 
is  known  as  the  vernal  equinox,  and  the  second  as  the 


142 FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

autumnal  equinox.  When  the  earth  is  at  her  outermost 
point,  you  will  see  that  her  Arctic  region  is  pointed  sun- 
ward, so  that  then  we  of  the  north  have  summer,  while 
our  winter  solstice  occurs  when  the  earth  is  innermost. 

In  the  very  nature  of  things,  with  every  star  in  move- 
ment, there  is  no  such  thing  as  an  absolutely  fixed  point 
or  an  unalterable  direction.  Astronomers  understand 
this  (though  strangely  forgetful  of  it  at  times!)  and  do 
the  best  they  can,  under  the  circumstances,  by  choosing 
the  most  stable  points  and  using  them  for  reference.  As 
important  as  any  of  these  is  what  is  known  as  the  celestial 
vernal  equinox,  and  it  is  that  sky  point  where  the  center 
of  the  sun  (to  the  eye  of  an  observer  supposed  at  the 
center  of  the  earth)  crosses  the  plane  of  the  earth's 
equator.  In  my  theory  this  occurs  at  the  precise  instant 
when  the  center  of  the  earth,  being  then  in  advance  of  the 
sun,  cuts  across  the  line  of  his  orbit.  Every  year  the 
astronomers  spare  no  pains  to  locate  this  point  with  all 
nicety  possible,  in  order  to  keep  accurate  track  of  general 
changes  of  position. 

It  is  important  to  remember  that  the  celestial  vernal 
equinox  does  not  remain  fixed  with  reference  to  the  stars, 
but  progresses  westwardly  around  the  zodiac.  To  under- 
stand why,  you  will  readily  perceive  that  in  traveling 
around  the  great  circuit  and  looking  back  once  a  year 
past  the  sun,  just  when  the  centers  of  both  are  on  the 
orbit,  the  latter  will  be  necessarily  projected  just  as  many 
degrees  to  the  west  on  the  celestial  circumference  as  both 
have  advanced  in  the  same  time  in  their  common  orbit. 
This  annually  executed  arc  has  been  measured  with  the 
most  refined  nicety  and  has  been  found  to  be  50". 2.  In 
other  words,  the  sun  covers  an  arc  of  his  orbit  50". 2  in 
length  each  year,  and  at  this  rate  should  complete  one  lap 
in  25,810  years. 

THE  ORBIT  AND  VELOCITY  OF  THE  SUN  COMPUTED 

Inasmuch  as,  by  hypothesis,  the  forward  motion  of  the 
system  is  due  to  a  definite  and  single  force,  to-wit :  the 
Prime  Eesultant,  we  might  be  justified  in  concluding, 


THE  LAW  or  EQUILIBRIUM  143 

without  further  corroboration,  that  in  one  year  the  earth, 
from  one  vernal  equinox  to  the  next,  advances  along  the 
main  orbit  exactly  the  diameter  of  her  own — a  conclusion 
which,  were  we  to  apply  the  principle  of  falling  bodies, 
associating  with  it  the  principle  of  the  lever,  would  prove 
generally  true  of  all  the  rest  of  the  planets.  However, 
there  is  another  chain  of  evidence  to  which  I  wish  now  to 
direct  your  attention  which  correlates  these  several  data, 
namely :  the  velocity  of  the  earth  in  her  orbit,  the  length 
of  the  arc,  the  degree  of  curvature  of  the  arc,  the  length 
of  the  diameter  of  the  earth's  orbit,  the  principle  of  fall- 
ing bodies,  the  velocity  of  the  sun  as  deduced  from  the 
direct  study  of  the  proper  and  the  radial  motions  of  the 
stars,  and,  finally,  the  parallactic  motion  of  the  Vertex. 

Given  the  length  of  the  arc  of  a  circle  in  degrees  and 
also  in  linear  measure,  it  is  only  a  matter  of  high-school 
mathematics  to  find  the  total  length  of  the  circumference 
and,  from  that,  all  the  remaining  functions  of  the  circle. 
Again,  if  we  know  the  length  of  an  arc  and  the  amount  it 
deviates  from  its  tangent  (technically  called  the  curva- 
ture), we  can,  by  a  simple  formula,  ascertain  the  radius 
in  the  first  instance,  and  so  on  to  the  rest.  In  the  case 
under  consideration  we  virtually  know  these  two  things : 
the  arc's  length,  and  its  curvature  in  miles.  The  latter  is 
quickly  ascertained  in  this  way : 

If  you  have  been  following  this  somewhat  intricate 
explanation  closely,  you  should  be  able  to  see  with  little 
effort,  that,  inasmuch  as  the  sun  has  at  the  instant  of  the 
second  vernal  equinox  failed  to  get  back  fully  into  line 
with  the  same  star  it  was  in  line  with  at  the  preceding 
equinox,  the  earth  must  continue  on  in  her  orbit  beyond 
her  equinoctial  position  until  the  old  star,  sun,  and  earth 
are  all  brought  again  into  alignment.  Astronomers  tell 
us  that  it  takes  20ms.  23  sees,  for  the  earth  to  move  far 
enough  in  her  orbital  journey  to  correct  this  discrepancy 
—this  curvature  of  the  arc.  Now,  the  earth's  average 
velocity  being  known  (18.5  miles  per  second),  to  reduce 
this  curvature  to  terms  of  miles  we  need  only  multiply 
this  quantity  by  the  number  of  seconds  of  time  to  obtain 
the  answer,  22,625  miles. 


144  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

As  said  before,  given  the  length  of  arc  in  seconds  and 
the  curvature  in  miles,  it  is  easily  possible  to  ascertain 
the  radius  of  the  circle.  The  rule,  stated  in  the  form  of 
an  equation  with  the  initial  letters  of  the  things  referred 
to  (See  Young's  Genl.  Astr.,  Art.  420),  is: 

c  :  a  :  :  a  :  2  r 

Now  the  length  of  the  radius  in  terms  of  degrees  of 
circumference  is  called  a  radian,  and  is  known  to  be 
57°  17'  44".8,  or  206,264.8".  Substituting  this  and  our 
other  values  in  the  equation  given,  we  have, 

22,625  (miles)  :  arc  (in  miles)  :  :  50".2  :  412,530" 
which,  being  reduced,  yields 

arc=185,977,500  miles, 

the  meaning  of  which  is,  that  in  one  year  the  center  of 
mass  of  our  solar  system  travels  exactly  the  width  of  the 
earth's  orbit,  as  measured  along  the  equinoctial  colure, 

AND  THAT  THIS  COLUKE  MARKS  THE  LINE  OF  THE  SUN  ^S  PATH. 

Choosing  round  numbers,  we  ascertain  by  simple  compu- 
tation the  length  of  the  sun's  orbit,  considering  it  as  a 
closed  curve,  to  be  25,810  x  186,000,000  miles,  or  4,800,- 
000,000,000  miles,  its  diameter  1,530,000,000,000;  the  axis 
of  the  cone  from  Centrum  to  Vertex  1,760,000,000,000  and 
from  the  Vertex  to  our  sun  (that  is  to  say,  the  stem  of  the 
Prime  Resultant)  1,918,000,000,000  miles.  Finally,  there 
being  31,557,000  seconds  in  a  year,  the  sun's  velocity  is 
found  to  be  just  a  trifle  short  of  six  miles  per  second. 

' '  But  six  miles ' ',  you  will  say, ' (  is  only  about  half 
the  actual  velocity  of  the  sun  as  found  by  the  direct 
methods,  how  do  you  account  for  the  balance  ? "  I  will 
answer  you.  Hitherto  in  this  discussion  I  have,  for  the 
sake  of  simplicity,  ignored  the  very  material  feature  that 
all  this  while  the  plane  of  the  ecliptic,  though  remaining 
sensibly  parallel  with  itself,  is  falling,  keeping  pace  with 
the  fall  of  the  system.  In  other  words,  the  sun  is  falling 
vertically  just  as  fast  as  it  is  "gyroscoping"  laterally; 
or,  to  borrow  the  parlance  of  the  astrophysicists,  he  has 
both  a  "proper"  motion  and  a  " radial"  motion.  You 
may  retort,  that  in  such  case  he  is  travelling  along  the 


THE  LAW  OF  EQUILIBRIUM  145 

hypothenuse,  hence  can  be  going  only  about  8.5  miles  per 
second.  This  is  true  enough,  but  considering  the  twa 
velocities  separately  and  then  adding,  which  I  under- 
stand to  be  the  practice  of  astronomers,  the  total  comes  to 
11.8  miles.  In  any  case,  the  net  result  is  so  close  to  that 
obtained  by  the  laborious  practical  methods  that  either 
result  might  fairly  be  cited  in  corroboration  of  the  other. 
Besides,  it  ought  not  to  be  presumed  that  we  have  ex- 
hausted all  the  possible  motions  of  the  sun,  and  some 
margin  should  be  allowed  for  future  developments. 

According  to  Newcomb,  the  pole  moves  20"  per 
annum  on  the  scroll  of  the  celestial  sphere.  Taking  the 
sun's  annual  movement  of  186,000,000  miles  as  the  base 
line,  the  question  arises  as  to  how  distant  the  Vertex 
must  be  to  possess  this  parallax,  or  in  other  words,  to 
make  the  distance  186,000,000  miles  subtend  an  angle  of 
only  20  seconds.  To  ascertain  this  we  need  simply  divide 
the  186,000,000  by  20  and  multiply  the  quotient  by  the 
number  of  seconds  in  a  radian,  yielding  as  a  result,  1,918,- 
000,000,000  miles,  which  is  precisely  the  same  value  we 
found  by  the  other  process. 

Again,  it  may  be  interposed  that  if,  indeed,  the 
system  be  falling  at  the  rate  specified,  it  would  in  the  pre- 
cessional  period  fall  a  sheer  height  equivalent  to  the  full 
length  of  the  sun's  orbit — practically  twice  as  low  as  the 
Vertex.  This  deduction,  also,  is  right, — if  one  remembers 
that  he  is  speaking  only  of  absolute  space.  But  the  ver- 
tex is  no  more  riveted  to  one  spot  than  a  horse  drawing  a 
vehicle.  It  is  merely  the  crossing  place  of  gravitational 
strands  that,  real  and  powerful  though  they  are,  are  yet 
as  imponderable,  as  elusive,  as  mobile  as  the  rays  of 
light  itself.  The  Vertex,  in  fine,  is  a  will-o'-the-wisp, 
beckoning  the  system  on  and  on  forever,  and,  indeed,  the 
Gravisphere  itself  should  be  conceived  of  as  in  the  pro- 
cess of  falling. 

If  the  reader  has  acquired  the  impression  that  I 
identify  the  vertex  with  the  center  of  the  stellar  universe, 
he  is  mistaken.  There  may  be  such  a  center,  perhaps; 
but  if  so,  it  is  as  shifting  as  the  clouds,  since  all  things  are 
in  motion.  The  Vertex  is  for  the  system  a  proximate  cen- 


146  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

ter  only,  just  as  the  earth  is  for  the  meteors  that  fall  in 
upon  it.  The  garden  of  the  sky,  indeed,  is  crowded  with 
these  umbels  of  forces  carrying,  perched  on  their  stems, 
their  planetary  efflorescences.  Beyond  that  Vertex  is 
another  far  more  distant,  beyond  that  again,  another 
more  distant  still,  and  so  on,  rising  higher  and  higher  in 
scale,  and  bearing  upon  their  twigs  systems,  and  upon 
their  branches  systems  of  systems  of  worlds.  To  my 
mind,  the  flatness  and  the  well-proved  depth  of  the  disc  of 
the  Milky  Way  eloquently  testify  that  it  is  a  gravitational 
unit  in  a  mightier  invisible  universe,  invisible  only  be- 
cause the  light  of  its  component  stars  is  drowned  in  the 
vast  sea  of  space.  As  such  a  unit,  of  course,  the  Galaxy 
should  rotate  around  an  axis  in  search  of  equilibrium,  and 
it  appears  that  astronomers  have  already  detected  some 
indications  of  such  rotation!  Underlying  the  whole 
structural  scheme  of  the  macrocosm,  as  under  the  ham- 
blest  habitation  of  man,  lies  the  great  principle  that  New- 
ton took  such  pains  to  eliminate — EQUILIBRIUM. 

THE  STAR  STREAMS  SO-CALLED 

The  reader  may  infer  from  what  has  just  been  dis- 
cussed that  the  star  streams  that  Kapteyn  was  the  first 
to  call  attention  to,  may  find  their  explanation  in  this 
principle.  Such  is  not  my  own  opinion.  This  phenome- 
non of  star-streaming  is,  like  the  daily  motion  of  the 
heavens  around  our  earth,  illusory.  It  is  only  apparent. 
It  arises  from  a  misguided  attempt  on  the  part  of  astron- 
omers to  generalize  from  data  gained  by  observing 
from  one  moving  body  another  moving  body  with  refer- 
ence to  a  third  moving  body,  all  of  whose  velocities  and 
distances,  relative  and  absolute,  are  highly  conjectural, 
and,  in  the  case  of  the  earth  at  least,  misconstrued.  No ! 
whoever  cares  to  play  the  role  of  skipper  of  this  good 
ship,  Earth,  and  in  imagination  will  take  his  stand  at  her 
south  pole  and  sail  her  around  the  sun's  orbit  a  voyage 
or  two,  watching  the  while  the  stars  on  shore,  will  soon 
come  to  realize  that  the  supposed  streams  are  but  the 
optical  effect  of  our  change  of  position. 


THE  LAW  OF  EQUILIBRIUM 147 

Inasmuch  as  the  stellar  motions  are  by  astronomical 
practice  and  necessity  referred  to  the  center  of  the  sun, 
and  that  in  turn  to  the  vernal  equinox,  we  do  not  need  to 
confuse  ourselves  by  attempting  to  combine  in  our 
thoughts  the  earth 's  annual  motion  of  revolution  with  the 
stellar  motion.  We  can,  instead,  more  easily  and  satis- 
factorily imagine  the  earth  as  always  in  vernal  equinox, 
that  is,  sailing  straight  ahead  of  the  sun  on  his  orbital 
path.  The  patient  student,  who  will  expend  the  necessary 
effort  in  acquiring  a  knowledge  of  the  methods  and  re- 
sults of  practical  astronomers  along  this  line,  will  have 
reason  to  marvel  at  their  perseverance  and  accuracy 
when  he  finds  how  remarkably  they  are  corroborated  by 
the  logical  deductions  flowing  from  these  theories. 


VI 

THE  AUTHOR'S  THEORY  OF  THE  TIDES 

IN  this  chapter  I  hope  to  convince  the  reader  that  tides 
are  not  created  in  the  manner  depicted  by  Newton, 
that  is  to  say,  in  antagonism  to  the  principle  of  equi- 
librium, but  by  a  process  exactly  the  reverse. 

In  the  diagram  (Fig.  5)  let  E  represent  a  planet  en- 
dowed naturally  with  the  property  of  gravitation.  It 
consists,  let  us  say,  of  a  solid  ball  10,000  miles  in  diam- 
eter surrounded  by  an  envelope  of  water  five  miles  in 
depth,  and,  as  an  aid  to  the  imagination,  suppose  this 
water  frozen  to  a  depth  of  one  mile.  Let  us  now  bring 
into  touch  with  E  a  second  body,  M,  which  has  no  seas 
and  which,  in  the  outset,  possesses  no  gravitational 
power.  Under  these  conditions  E,  of  course,  will  not  be 
in  the  least  affected  by  M's  proximity.  But  suppose  we 
had  a  method  whereby,  as  by  the  turning  of  a  tap  or 
switch,  we  could  charge  M  with  as  much  of  this  force  as 
we  pleased,  and  let  the  current  be  then  turned  on.  What 
would  be  the  natural  effect  upon  E?  Surely  its  solid 
part  would  immediately  begin  to  sink  in  its  own  seas  and 
finally  rest  upon  the  inner  surface  of  the  ice  crust  (Fig. 
6).  In  other  words,  the  tidal  action  of  M  on  E  would 
be  to  depress  the  seas  intervening  between  them  and  not 
to  elevate  them  there  at  all.  Now,  if  you  please,  turn  on 
the  discharging  tap  and  see  what  will  happen  next; 
obviously  the  planet  E  will  return  to  its  original  condi- 
tion. 


THE  AUTHOR'S  THEORY  OF  THE  TIDES 


149 


(0 
'do 

£ 


150  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

The  same  phenomena  would  have  occurred,  in  like 
sequence,  had  we  imagined  the  body  M  approaching  E 
through  a  great  distance.  M  might  then  have  been  pos- 
tulated as  gravitational  from  the  start,  the  same  as  E, 
the  element  of  distance  taking  the- place  of  our  artificial 
regulation  of  the  gravitational  intensity.  It  seems  quite 
clear  to  me,  at  least,  that  as  M  came  nearer  and  nearer, 
thereby  augmenting  its  gravitational  influence  upon  E, 
the  solid  part  of  the  ]atter  should  react  precisely  as  it 
did  before,  and  shallow  the  sea  between  them.  Tides 
thus  produced  would  conform  in  principle  to  the  law  of 
lowest  center,  and  would  satisfy  Darwin's  plaint,  when 
he  says,  "It  would  seem  then  as  if  the  tidal  action  of 
the  moon  was  actually  to  repel  the  water  instead  of  at- 
tracting it,  and  we  are  driven  to  ask  whether  this  result 
can  possibly  be  consistent  with  the  theory  of  universal 
gravitation. ' ' 

Let  us  consider  a  second  illustration:  Imagine  the 
universe  blotted  out  save  for  a  single  cloud  of  aqueous 
vapor  of,  say,  the  same  mass  as  the  moon;  then,  under 
the  principle  of  gravitation,  the  cloud  would  eventually 
condense  into  a  watery  sphere.  Suppose,  again,  that 
instead  of  consisting  of  water  vapor  alone,  it  comprised 
equal  parts  of  mercury  and  water ;  then  there  would  re- 
sult a  planet  containing  an  inner  core  of  mercury,  and, 
around  it,  a  concentric  sphere  of  the  lighter  material 
constituting  a  universal  sea  of  uniform  depth. 

We  will  now  conceive  an  exactly  similar  planet  to 
spring  suddenly  into  existence  at  a  distance  of  ten  mil- 
lion miles  away  and  both  planets  to  gravitate  toward 
each  other  by  virtue  of  their  mutual  attraction  until  they 
collide.  Query:  What  would  be  the  nature  of  their 
tidal  deformations  in  transitu,  assuming  that  they  pos- 
sessed no  axial  rotation  ? 

To  this  question,  modern  astronomy  vacillatingly 
returns  two  contradictory  answers,  consistent  only  in  the 
respect  that  both  are  equally  inimical  to  the  principle  of 
equilibrium;  which,  indeed,  is  precisely  what  they  are 
meant  to  be.  One  of  these  answers  is  Newton's  own, 
namely,  that  inasmuch  as  the  power  that  causes  the  tides 


THE  AUTHOR'S  THEORY  OF  THE  TIDES  151 

resides  in  the  fact  of  rotation,  there  being  in  this  case,  by 
premiss,  no  rotation,  there  could  be  no  deformation  at 
all;  hence  the  two  spheres  would  arrive  at  their  point  of 
impact  as  perfectly  spherical  as  when  they  began  falling. 

The  alternative  answer  is  that  of  the  hypothesis  of 
statical  tides,  which  astronomers  make  use  of  without 
hesitancy  whenever  it  suits  their  purpose,  in  spite  of  its 
gross  logical  inconsistency.  This  view  asserts,  that  the 
spheres  in  question  would  elongate  in  the  direction  of  the 
line  of  descent,  so  that  by  the  time  they  reached  the  point 
of  collision  they  would  somewhat  resemble  row-boats 
meeting  bow  on. 

In  order  to  expose  the  fallacy  of  both  these  views, 
let  us  try  the  time-honored  plan  of  picking  up  the  other 
end  of  the  skein,  and  working  backwards.  Suppose, 
then,  the  collision  to  be  a  thing  of  the  past  and  the  resul- 
tant body  to  have  had  time  to  compose  itself,  as  it  natur- 
ally would,  into  a  new  sphere  in  all  respects  like  our  two 
original  ones,  only,  of  course,  twice  their  size.  Conceive 
this  major  sphere  to  be  cleanly  severed  in  half,  and  the 
divided  parts  to  be  gently  removed  from  each  other  to 
their  original  separating  distance.  Without  doubt,  by 
the  time  they  arrive  at  those  extreme  points,  the  two 
hemispheres  will  no  longer  be  such  in  shape,  but  will  nec- 
essarily have  acquired  their  aforetime  sphericity.  The 
question  then  arises  as  to  what  should  be  the  interme- 
diate or  transitional  shapes. 

May  it  go  without  argument,  that  the  chain  of  trans- 
formations, going  and  coming,  should  be  the  same,  only 
in  reverse  order  ?  If  this  be  conceded,  then,  according  to 
Newton's  idea,  the  hemispheres  immediately  following 
their  sundering  should  instantly  leap  into  spheres  then 
and  there,  without  waiting  for  further  removal.  On  the 
other  hand,  according  to  the  Statics,  they  should,  instead, 
but  quite  as  spasmodically,  reassume  their  boat-like 
forms,  and  from  then  to  the  end  of  the  outward  journey 
gradually  exchange  these  for  the  spherical.  These,  to 
my  thinking,  palpable  reductios  ad  absurdum,  effectu- 
ally refute  both  these  classical  owfo'-equilibrium  hypo- 
theses. 


152  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

It  remains,  however,  to  vindicate  my  equilibrium 
solution  affirmatively  by  showing  that,  under  it,  the  chain 
of  transformations,  to  and  fro,  is  not  only  the  same  (save, 
of  course,  as  to  the  fact  of  necessary  reversal),  but  that 
all  the  transitional  shapes  it  presupposes  can  consistently 
be  figures  of  equilibrium.  All  this,  I  hope  the  reader 
will  perceive  is  assured  and  attained  when  we  conceive 
that,  in  being  removed  outward,  the  hemispheres  imper- 
ceptibly take  on  forms  more  and  more  gibbous,  simu- 
lating the  phases  of  the  moon  from  first  quarter  to  full, 
while  in  the  contrary  direction  the  spheres  become  less 
and  less  so,  imitating  the  phases  between  full  and  last 
quarter.  Everyone  should  be  able  to  see  for  himself  that 
the  nearer  the  minor  spheres  approach  each  other,  the 
more  does  the  water  seek  passage  to  the  rear,  as  though 
in  fear  of  being  caught  "between  the  bumpers",  while 
in  going  the  other  way,  things  are  just  vice  versa.  In 
Fig.  7  are  shown,  in  juxtaposition,  the  three  sets  of  trans- 
formations in  the  order  above  described. 

Speaking  specifically  of  the  earth,  then  (though  the 
principle  applies  universally),  her  tides  are  caused  by  a 
conflict  between  two  ruling  gravitational  forces,  namely, 
(1)  the  integral  attraction  of  the  earth  upon  her  own 
mass,  and  (2)  the  extraneous  attraction  of  the  sun;  the 
first  seeking  ever  to  concentrate  her  heavier  substances 
at  her  center  and  to  deploy  the  lighter  on  the  outside, 
the  latter  ever  striving  to  compel  her  to  recognize  the 
sun's  rival  power  and  advance  her  heavier  parts  toward 
him.  Were  the  earth  solid  clear  through,  as  the  moon 
appears  to  be,  she  would  turn  the  same  face  to  the  sun 
continuously,  but  having  great  mobile  oceans,  she  com- 
promises by  shifting  them  from  in  front  of  the  sun,  thus 
giving  her  center  of  gravity,  as  it  were,  a  chance  to  make 
obeisance  to  him. 


THE  AUTHOR  's  THEORY  OF  THE  TIDES 


153 


154  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

COMPUTATION  OF  THE  TIDAL  FORCES 

It  will  be  remembered  that,  according  to  Newton's 
idea,  the  waters  making  up  the  tidal  mounds  are  con- 
strued as  being  drawn  thither  obliquely  from  the  rounded 
sides  of  the  earth ;  whence  he  argues  that  the  tidal  forces 
of  the  sun  and  moon  do  not  vary  in  accordance  with  the 
rule  of  inverse  squares,  as  the  law  of  gravitation  has  it, 
but  of  the  inverse  cubes.  As  a  result  of  this  hypothesis, 
he  estimated  the  ratio  of  the  sun's  effect  to  thai  of  the 
moon  as  (about)  one  to  four.  If  we  are  right,  however, 
in  our  new  hypothesis  that  the  tides  are  acts  of  equili- 
brism,  the  solar  and  lunar  tidal  forces  vary,  not  accord- 
ing to  the  exception,  but  strictly  according  to  the  letter 
of  the  law  itself.  Thus  calculated,  they  vary  as  180  to  1, 
this  time  with  the  sun  having  the  advantage — a  total 
change  of  720  points! 

Knowing  as  we  do  the  relative  masses  of  the  earth 
and  sun  (1  to  332,000)  and  the  earth's  radius  as  compared 
with  the  solar  distance  (1  to  23,000),  we  can  easily  find 
by  applying  the  law  of  gravitation  that  the  earth's  at- 
traction on  her  oceans  is,  in  round  numbers,  1600  times 
as  powerful  as  the  sun's.  Here,  then,  is  the  measure  of 
the  conflict  of  authority  between  the  earth's  integral  at- 
traction on  the  one  hand,  and  the  sun's  disturbing  at- 
traction on  the  other;  the  former  commanding  the  oceans 
to  remain  where  they  are,  the  latter  ordering  them  to 
give  way  and  let  the  earth's  center  of  gravity  step  forth 
to  greet  him. 

What  we  want  next,  now,  is  to  get  at  some  way  of 
determining  the  quantum  of  this  force  in  tangible  terms. 
Why  not  in  terms  of  mean  ocean  depth?  As  stated  be- 
fore, this  depth  is  given  by  Murray  as  12,480  feet.  Di- 
viding this  quantity  by  1600  then,  gives  7.8  feet,  repre- 
senting the  intensity  of  the  sun's  protest  against  the 
earth's  own  disposition  of  her  ocean  waters — though  it 
may  not,  indeed,  actually  dislodge  them,  seeing  that  the 
earth,  in  the  course  of  her  rotation,  keeps  presenting  a 
new  face  to  the  sun  before  his  effect  at  any  one  point  can 
arrive  at  completion  or  become  permanent. 


THE  AUTHOR  's  THEORY  or  THE  TIDES  155 

The  solar  tide  being  thus  found  to  be  7.8  feet,  to  find 
the  lunar  tide  we  simply  divide  this  amount  by  180,  yield- 
ing only  a  trifle  more  than  a  half  inch.  These  figures, 
let  it  be  noted,  are  substantial  quantities,  derived  as  they 
are  from  well-ascertained  relevant  data,  and  may  not 
fairly  be  compared  with  Newton's  estimates,  based  as 
they  were  on  the  spurious  standard  of  the  thickness  of  the 
equatorial  ring.  If  a  comparison  be  desired  at  all,  the 
fair  and  logical  way  is  to  contrast  my  results  with  the 
1-20  and  1-80  inch  tidal  measures  for  the  moon  and 
sun  respectively,  which,  by  parallel  computation,  I  de- 
rived in  a  previous  chapter. 

THE  CAUSE  OF  THE  EARTH'S  DIURNAL 
ROTATION 

It  has  been  previously  demonstrated,  not  only  by  the 
author's  original  arguments,  but  by  the  quoted  admis- 
sions of  such  orthodox  authorities  as  Sir  Robert  Ball  and 
Sir  John  Herschel,  that  Newton's  premises  presuppose 
a  miraculous  origin  of  the  earth 's  axial  rotation  and, 
what  is  more,  provide  no  recuperating  source  to  make 
good  future  losses.  As  if  this  were  not  taxing  human 
credulity  enough,  we  have  been  further  taught:  first,  by 
Newton  and  Herschel,  that  the  equatorial  ring  is  being 
centrifugalized  throughout  the  ages  by  this  mysterious 
power;  second,  by  Kant,  that  the  rotation  is  being  slowly 
destroyed  by  the  friction  of  the  tides;  thirdly,  by  Ball 
and  the  rest,  that  all  the  energy  that  goes  into  the  lifting 
of  the  tides  flows  from  this  same  store  of  unearned  mo- 
mentum; and,  lastly,  that,  marvel  of  marvels,  the  histori- 
cal records  of  some  five  thousand  years  of  eclipses  inform 
us  that,  in  spite  of  all  these  monstrous  drains,  the  earth 's 
day  has  not  lengthened  by  so  much  as  a  hundredth  of 
a  second  of  time!  Truly,  celestial  mechanics  as  taught 
by  our  " great  scientific  institutions"  is  quite  as  far 
above  the  heads  of  common  mortals  as  Dr.  Abbot  says. 

Counting  myself  as  one  of  this  plebeian  caste,  I  con- 
fess, without  any  sense  of  shame,  my  simplicity  in  sup- 
posing that  the  earth's  axial  rotation  had  a  dynamical 


156  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

origin,  that  it  is  being  spun  by  a  live  power,  and  that  the 
much  taking  of  something  from  nothing,  though  pos- 
sible to  Newtonian  imagination,  will  never  content  my 
banker. 

That  some  physical  cause  lies  behind  the  earth's  ro- 
tation is  axiomatic;  and  what  cause  more  eligible  to  this 
purpose  than  this  very  phenomenon  of  the  tides,  super- 
induced as  they  are  by  that  great  cosmic  force — gravi- 
tation? Where  can  power  be  more  effectively  applied 
than  at  the  circumference  of  the  fly  wheel  ?  Has  it  never 
occurred  to  you  before,  that  Newtonianism  has  found  no 
use  for  gravitation  save  as  a  restraining  means — to  leash 
planets  and  retard  rotations?  Given  this  unique,  this 
all-sufficient  creative  energy,  modern  science  has  system- 
atically resisted  its  logical  development.  Like  the  un- 
worthy servant  in  the  parable,  it  has  buried  its  talent. 

Here  we  have  the  precise  elements  requisite  to  ac- 
count for  the  earth's  diurnal  rotation.  In  Fig.  8,  let  AB 
represent  an  arc  of  the  earth's  orbit,  along  which  she  is 
being  hurried  by  the  vortical  action  of  the  Prime  Kesul- 
tant,  and  E,  our  planet  itself  (the  direction  of  the  move- 
ment in  each  case  being  shown  by  the  arrows).  As  pre- 
viously explained,  the  tidal  action  of  the  sun  at  the  point 
indicated  by  x  is  to  drive  back  tlie  oceans  with  a  strength 
equivalent  to  1-1600  of  their  weight;  it  is  as  if  the  sun 
were  applying  a  very  powerful  brake,  or  as  if  he  were 
blowing  a  strong  blast  against  that  side,  causing  the  solid 
kernel  to  trip,  as  it  were,  and  roll  over  and  over  upon 
its  face,  like  a  barrel  on  an  incline.  Or,  as  some  might 
say,  the  principle  is  rather  that  of  buoyancy,  the  kernel 
being  "lifted  off  its  feet",  as  by  a  sudden  rise  of  water, 
rendering  it  perennially  unstable  against  the  pull  of  the 
Prime  Eesultant.  A  stately  ship,  our  Earth,  driven  by 
wireless  power  from  the  stars;  herself  the  compass,  hu- 
manity her  passengers,  eternity  her  port ! 

If  we  care  to,  we  can  imagine  a  beginning  to  this  pro- 
cess from  a  previous  state  of  rest,  and  picture  to  our- 
selves a  gradual  acceleration  of  the  movement  until,  like 
a  fly-wheel  responding  to  its  engine,  the  planet  attained 
the  uniform  velocity  it  now  seems  to  possess.  However, 


THE  AUTHOR'S  THEORY  OF  THE  TIDES 


157 


I 

CO 
2 


Fig.  8 


158  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

the  applied  forces  are  not  absolutely  uniform  the  year 
through,  for  not  only  is  the  earth  nearer  the  sun 
at  perihelion  than  elsewhere  in  her  orbit,  but  that  place 
happens  also  to  be  the  position  of  the  winter  solstice, 
when  a  greater  ocean  expanse  is  exposed  to  the  sun's 
tidal  influence;  besides,  the  earth  travels  faster  in  her 
orbit  then  than  at  other  times.  For  these  reasons,  the 
spring  days  (24  hours)  must  be  a  few  seconds  shorter 
than  those  of  autumn,  but  whether  our  chronometers  are 
reliable  enough  to  register  these  nuances  is  doubtful. 
Before  the  time  of  Kepler  the  world  mistakenly  supposed 
the  planets  to  revolve  at  uniform  speed.  Why,  then,  may 
not  also  axial  velocities  periodically  vary?  Such  varia- 
tions might  easily  exist  without  incurring  observational 
discovery,  inasmuch  as  they  would  not  necessarily  affect 
either  the  length  of  the  average  day  or  of  the  year. 

Lifting  our  eyes  to  other  planets,  the  first  they  be- 
hold is  Mars,  whose  mass  is  only  1-9  that  of  our  earth. 
Situated  as  he  is  about  half  again  as  far  as  we  from  the 
sun,  the  latter  ?s  attraction  upon  him  is  less  than  half  as 
great  as  it  is  on  the  earth.  Now,  Mars,  too,  rotates  on 
his  axis,  and  his  day  is  only  slightly  longer  than  our 
own,  all  of  which  harmonizes  admirably  with  our  hy- 
pothesis of  tidal  rotation.  There  can  ultimately  remain 
only  one  conclusion,  namely,  that  Mars  is  richly  endowed 
with  oceans,  proportionately  more  expansive,  though 
shallower  than  ours.  When  the  first  edition  of  this  work 
appeared  in  March,  1912,  it  was  difficult  to  discover  in 
the  books  any  testimony  in  support  of  such  a  deduction. 
In  fact,  the  reports  were  almost  if  not  wholly  the  other 
way,  making  the  planet  out  to  be  a  veritable  desert. 
During  the  last  two  oppositions,  however,  overwhelming 
evidence  of  a  contrary  nature  has  grown  apace,  some  of 
which  will  be  adduced  in  a  later  chapter.  As  for  the 
axial  rotations  of  the  sun  and  Jupiter,  with  their  pecul- 
iar problem  of  equatorial  acceleration,  and  the  rotations 
of  the  other  planets  in  general,  these  must  be  postponed 
to  a  later  chapter. 


THE  AUTHOR'S  THEORY  or  THE  TIDES 159 

THE  TURNING  FORCE  COMPUTED 

Before  leaving  the  subject,  it  may  be  well  to  ascer- 
tain the  degree  of  this  buoyancy,  or,  if  you  prefer,  the 
weight  of  the  pressure  of  this  brake. 

The  sun  illumines  only  one-half  of  our  planet  at  a 
time,  and  on  that  half  he  does  not  shine  all  over  verti- 
cally, but  mostly  obliquely.  Accordingly,  in  estimating 
his  tidal  action  we  may  average  it  up  as  affecting  only 
one-fourth  of  the  ocean  area  at  one  time,  but  this  much 
with  maximum  effect.  This  area  is  given  by  Murray  at 
140,000,000  square  miles,  of  which  the  fourth  part  is 
35,000,000  square  miles.  A  sheet  of  sea  water  (63 
pounds  to  the  cubic  foot)  7.8  feet  in  depth  (the  solar 
"tide"),  extending  over  this  immense  expanse  would 
weigh  240,000,000,000,000  tons,  an  amount  strangely 
identical  with  my  former  estimate  of  the  intensity  of  the 
earth's  attraction  upon  the  moon.  Converting  this  into 
horse-power,  according  to  our  chosen  formula,  it  becomes 
quite  evident  that  the  earth  is  not  turning  on  its  axis 
simply  "because  it  cannot  stop  a  motion  that  never  was 
started",  but  because  Nature  intelligently  supplies  a 
quarter-quadrillion-horse-power  engine  to  do  the  work. 
This,  too,  in  addition  to  the  cooperation  of  the  Prime 
Resultant,  pulling  the  earth  along  in  her  spiral  orbit. 

THE  MOON  's  RELATION  TO  THE  TIDES 

Although  Newton  estimated  the  ratio  of  the  solar 
and  lunar  tides  as  1  to  4,  modern  computation  places  it 
at  1  to  2.25.  Were  either  of  these  ratios  true,  it  is  hard 
to  understand  why  no  trace  of  a  solar  tide  has  ever  been 
detected.  To  say  that  the  lesser  merges  in  the  greater, 
even  though  the  circumstances  for  their  separate  exist- 
ence are  at  times  most  favorable,  is  only  a  subterfuge. 
The  absence  of  such  a  double  set  of  tides  is,  however, 
easily  understood  under  my  theory,  for  the  lunar  tide  is 
reckoned  at  only  1-180  of  the  other  relatively,  and  only  a 
half-inch  absolutely — far  too  insignificant  to  show. 

A  more  important  problem,  however,  is :  Why  do  the 
passage  of  the  moon  and  the  appearance  of  the  tide,  even 


160  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

though  the  latter  is  some  eight  hours  in  her  wake,  ex- 
hibit such  a  singular  correspondence  in  their  schedules? 

To  begin  with,  I  urge  upon  you,  as  an  honest  jury- 
man, not  to  ignore  the  moon's  sound  alibi.  She  has 
never  yet  been  discovered  in  flagrante  delicto.  Count- 
less human  eyes,  including  Darwin's,  can  testify  that  at 
the  time  she  is  accused  of  having  lifted  the  tide  in  the 
mid- Atlantic,  she  wasn't  there  at  all,  but  mid-over  the 
Pacific.  She  is  the  victim  of  incriminating  circum- 
stances, perhaps,  but  she  is  immaculately  innocent. 
Darwin,  you  know,  accused  her  even  of  repelling  the  seas 
under  her,  for  which  he  had  better  cause;  but  in  the  end 
he  preferred  to  believe  her  guilty  of  the  crime  alleged,  in 
shameful  disregard  of  the  evidence. 

The  whole  mystery  dissolves  away  with  the  discov- 
ery of  the  true  tidal  cause.  Without  being  able  to 
fathom  the  physical  reason,  astronomers  have  discovered 
that  changes  of  momentum  in  this  or  that  member  of 
a  cosmic  system,  whether  orbital  or  axial,  are  invariably 
compensated  by  reverse  changes  elsewhere.  They  call 
this  "the  law  of  conservation  of  moment  of  momentum ". 
With  them  it  is  only  an  empirical  fact,  an  arbitrary  pro- 
vision of  Nature's,  dictated  neither  by  discoverable  rea- 
son or  necessity. 

Our  present  inquiry  as  to  why  the  moon  and  the  tidal 
crest  keep  pace,  affords  us  an  excellent  opportunity  to 
emphasize  and  illustrate  the  advantage  of  the  principle 
of  equilibrium  over  the  denial  of  it  as  a  key  to  the  struc- 
ture of  the  cosmos,  and  to  point  out  the  superiority  of 
physical  causation  over  cryptic  abstractions.  The 
studious  reader  who  has  done  me  the  honor  to  read  thus 
far  must  now  be  as  familiar  as  myself  with  the  concep- 
tion of  what  a  "gravitational  unit"  is,  and  how  our  bi- 
nary earth-moon  system  maintains  its  balance,  progres- 
sively, in  the  face  of  all  adverse  outside  attractions. 
One — the  chief — disturber  of  this  equilibrium  is,  of 
course,  the  sun.  By  virtue  of  his  differential  attraction 
upon  the  kernel  of  the  earth  and  her  seas,  the  planet  is 
obliged  to  redispose  her  mobile  parts — to  wit,  her  oceans 
— in  such  a  way  as  not  only  to  trim  her  own  balance,  but 


THE  AUTHOR'S  THEORY  OF  THE  TIDES  161 

that  of  the  little  system  of  which  she  is  the  main  cog. 
The  question  is,  whither  shall  the  waters  squeezed  out 
from  under  the  sun  go,  so  as  restore  the  system's  shaken 
balance  I  Certainly  not  to  the  spot  under  the  moon,  f  or 
that  would  only  be  making  matters  worse  by  still  more 
overweighting  that  already  overweighted  side!  No,  the 
natural  way  is  for  the  migrating  waters  to  heap  them- 
selves up  at  two  points  on  the  surface  eqiii-distant  from 
the  moon  and  from  each  otherf  forming  together,  as  it 
were,  the  three  corners  of  an  isosceles  triangle.  These 
locations,  of  course,  are  ideal  rather  than  actual,  inas- 
much as  the  moon,  because  of  her  monthly  revolution,  is 
constantly  changing  her  angular  position  relatively  to 
the  earth  and  the  sun,  thus  dynamically  complicating 
the  phenomena  themselves,  as  well  as  the  mathematics 
of  them,  beyond  human  unraveling. 

It  is  important,  in  this  connection,  to  avoid  the  mis- 
take of  supposing  that  the  sun's  displacing  power  upon 
the  waters  is  necessarily  always  uniform.  Were  this 
true  in  fact,  it  would  but  cloud  the  principle  involved. 
The  principle  is  that  the  earth  must  maintain  her  own 
and  her  system's  equilibrium,  and  so  she  reacts  to  the 
attraction  only  to  the  extent  required  by  the  conditions 
of  the  moment.  For  instance,  when  the  sun  is  mid-over 
either  ocean,  his  effect  is  at  a  maximum,  and  when  he  is 
looking  down  upon  the  continents,  at  a  minimum;  like- 
wise, in  winter,  when  he  is  farthest  south,  where  the 
oceans  are  twice  as  expansive,  the  tides  are  in  general 
higher  than  when  he  is  north  of  the  equator.  The  posi- 
tion of  the  moon  in  her  orbit  is  another  factor  that  rules 
the  heights  of  the  tides.  When  she  is  in  line  with  the 
earth  and  sun,  the  system  is  top-heavy,  and  needs  more 
ballasting  than  when  she  is  elsewhere,  hence  it  is  then 
that  we  have  our  "spring"  tides;  but  when  she  is  at 
quadrature,  the  contrary  is  the  case,  and  we  have  "neap" 
tides;  and  so  on. 

This  principle  of  what  may  be  called  tidal  equili- 
brism  furnishes  the  sufficient  explanation  of  the  singular 
movements  of  the  inner  satellites  of  Jupiter  and  of  Sa- 


162  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

turn,  described  by  Sir  John  Herschel  in  Articles  542  and 
550,  respectively  (Outlines  of  Astronomy) : 

An  extremely  singular  relation  subsists  between  the  mean 
angular  velocities  or  mean  motions  of  the  three  first  satellites  of 
Jupiter.  If  the  mean  angular  velocity  of  the  first  be  added  to 
twice  that  of  the  third,  the  sum  will  equal  three  times  that  of  the 
second.  From  this  relation  it  follows  that  if  from  the  mean 
longitude  of  the  first  added  to  twice  that  of  the  third,  be  sub- 
ducted three  times  that  of  the  second,  the  remainder  will  always 
be  the  same  or  constant,  and  observation  informs  us  that  this  con- 
stant is  1 80°,  or  two  right  angles ;  so  that  the  situation  of  any  two 
of  them  being  given,  that  of  the  third  may  be  found.  *  *  *  One 
curious  consequence  is,  that  these  three  satellites  cannot  be  all 
eclipsed  at  once;  for,  in  consequence  of  the  last  mentioned  rela- 
tion, when  the  second  and  third  lie  in  the  same  direction  from  the 
centre,  the  first  must  lie  on  the  opposite.  *  *  * 

A  remarkable  relation  subsists  between  the  periodical  times 
of  the  two  interior  satellites  of  Saturn  and  those  of  the  two  next 
in  order  of  distance;  viz.,  that  the  period  of  the  third  (Tethys)  is 
double  that  of  the  first  (Mimas),  and  that  of  the  fourth  (Dione) 
double  that  of  the  second  (Enceladus).  The  coincidence  is  ex- 
act in  either  case  to  about  1-800  part  of  the  larger  period. 

That  the  atmosphere  should  be  affected  by  tides  in 
much  the  same  manner  as  the  hydrosphere  goes  without 
saying,  but  on  account  of  its  invisibility,  its  tidal  be- 
havior cannot  be  so  exactly  investigated  and  defined. 
One  point  of  this  relationship  is  revealed  by  the  ob- 
served fact  that  when  the  ocean  level  is  low,  the  barom- 
eter is  always  higher  than  normal.  It  is  atmospheric 
tides  that  constitute  the  chief  cause  of  trade  winds,  but 
I  shall  not  weary  the  reader  by  discussing  this  collateral 
subject  in  the  present  work. 

TERRESTRIAL  MAGNETISM 

By  substituting,  in  theory,  tides  of  depression  for 
lifting  tides,  we  not  only  gain  in  frictional  effect,  but 
we  likewise  transpose  the  locus  of  it  to  the  floors  of  the 
oceans  instead  of  to  their  coasts.  On  the  other  hand,  I 
have  given  reasons  to  justify  the  deduction  that  the 
metals,  being  the  heaviest  substances,  are  mainly  cen- 
trally located  within  the  earth,  and  ranged  along  its 
axis.  The  semblance  of  the  earth,  therefore,  to  a  helix 


THE  AUTHOB'S  THEORY  OF  THE  TIDES  163 

and  core,  taken  in  connection  with  the  dynamical  effect 
of  the  tides,  leads  easily  and  naturally  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  earth's  magnetism  is  tide-induced.  If  added 
proof  be  demanded,  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  remarkable 
coincidence  of  the  magnetic  needle's  variations  with 
those  of  the  diurnal  movements  of  the  sun  and  moon,  and, 
quite  as  remarkable,  with  the  change  of  seasons  as  well. 
Indeed,  on  careful  investigation  it  will  be  found  that 
whenever  the  water  is  severely  shaken  in  the  ocean  bowl, 
by  tides  or  by  any  other  cause  (solar  explosions,  for  in- 
stance, which  temporarily  unbalance  the  earth  as  well 
as  all  other  bodies  in  the  system),  extraordinary  electri- 
cal phenomena  are  certain  to  follow.  Heretofore,  at- 
tempts have  been  made  to  connect  the  needle's  variations 
with  the  fluctuations  of  the  solar  radiation,  but  unsuc- 
cessfully, because  of  the  conflicting  fact  that  the  moon, 
whose  radiation  is  comparatively  nil,  has  been  found  to 
exercise  a  similar  magnetic  influence  rivaling  the  sun's 
own.  Orthodox  astronomy  has  not  dared  to  broach  this 
tidal  explanation,  because  it  would  involve  too  brazen  a 
drain  on  inertial  momentum;  but  the  explanation  be- 
comes fully  available  under  my  own  theory  of  gravita- 
tional centrifugal  motions. 

According  to  this  logic,  the  earth's  poles,  being  the 
termini  of  the  supposed  "core",  should  be  the  centers  of 
greatest  electrical  activity,  the  charge  passing  from  one 
or  the  other  of  them  through  the  atmosphere,  along  me- 
ridianal  lines,  to  the  opposite  pole,  thereby  completing 
the  circuit.  This  surmise  accounts  at  once,  and  equally 
well,  both  for  the  northern  lights,  or  aurora  borealis,  and 
for  the  direction  and  deflection  of  the  magnetic  needle, 
besides  offering  a  most  alluring  field  for  speculation  as 
to  the  possible  future  exploitation  of  another  natural  re- 
source. 

THE  COMETS 

Beautiful  though  some  of  them  are,  the  comets  have 
ever  been  regarded  by  the  ignorant  as  forerunners  of 
disaster;  and  since  disasters  have  a  way  of  occuring  right 


164  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

along,  the  comets  have  not  failed  to  sustain  their  unen- 
viable repute.  Scientifically,  they  are  generally  looked 
upon  as  strays  from  neighboring  systems,  and  this  char- 
acter they  undoubtedly  possess,  notwithstanding  that 
many  of  them  have  succeeded  in  insinuating  themselves 
as  permanent  occupants  of  our  solar  hearth.  Their  man- 
ners it  is  that  proclaim  them  strangers;  they  move  ec- 
centrically, redden  when  they  near  the  sun,  and  pres- 
ently turn  tail  and  hurry  away,  perhaps  never  to  return. 
But  what,  in  truth,  are  they,  and  why  do  they  behave  as 
they  do? 

Imagine  two  bodies  of  equal  mass  away  off  in  space 
and  separated  from  each  other  by  a  considerable  inter- 
val, and,  midway  between  them,  a  cube  of  lead  and  a 
similar  cube  of  ivory  glued  firmly  face  to  face.  Under 
these  circumstances,  clearly  the  bi-cube  would  take  up  a 
neutral  position,  disposing  its  longer  axis  at  right  angles 
to  the  line  joining  the  attracting  bodies.  Suppose,  now, 
one  of  the  planets  to  remain  stationary  while  the  other 
is  violently  projected  straight  toward  it.  In  this  case, 
according  to  my  interpretation,  the  bi-cube  will  incline 
its  lead  end  toward  the  nearing  planet  and,  by  the  same 
token,  turn  its  ivory  end  toward  the  stationary  one,  more 
and  more,  until,  finally,  the  long  axis  instead  of  remain- 
ing transverse,  will  run  parallel  with  the  line  of  force. 
An  unreflecting  person,  watching  the  whole  proceeding, 
might  misinterpret  this  action  of  the  double  cube  as 
attraction  upon  the  lead  and  repulsion  on  the  ivory;  but 
we  know  better  than  that,  because  we  know  that  ivory 
by  itself  will  fall  as  well  as  lead,  so  it  too  must  be  at- 
tracted. Indeed,  had  we  mated  the  ivory  cube  with  a 
cube  of  cork,  instead  of  lead,  it  would  have  enacted  the 
same  role  as  the  lead.  In  other  words,  differential  at- 
traction due  to  variation  in  density  creates  the  illusion 
of  repulsion. 

Let  us  carry  the  experiment  a  step  farther  and  im- 
agine, in  lieu  of  the  bi-cube,  a  sealed  tube  many  miles  in 
length,  nearly  filled  with  equal  volumes  of  a  dozen  mu- 
tually insoluble  liquids,  like  mercury,  water  and  benzol, 
and  repeat  the  first  process  in  the  same  order.  Can  you 


j£ THE  AUTHOR'S  THEORY  OF  THE  TIDES 165 

doubt  for  a  moment  that  the  tube,  like  the  bi-cube,  will 
at  first  orientate  itself  transversely  to  the  course  of  the 
equal  attractions,  and,  afterward,  as  the  projected  body 
draws  nearer  and  nearer,  will  incline  its  mercury  end 
more  and  more  toward  that  body  and  its  benzol  end  cor- 
respondingly toward  the  distant  stationary  one!  And 
when,  finally,  the  moving  body  comes  close  up,  while  the 
other  continues  still  as  distant  as  ever,  don't  you  know, 
as  well  as  you  can  reason  yourself  to  any  knowledge, 
that  the  tube  will  stand  altogether  erect,  as  did  the  sol- 
dered cubes? 

But  our  picture  is  not  yet  complete,  for  if  we  do  not 
speedily  find  some  way  to  support  the  tube  against  the 
major  attraction,  there  will  presently  be  a  collision  and 
the  contents  of  our  vessel  will  be  ingloriously  spilled. 
For  this  sustaining  purpose,  let  us  invoke  the  vortical 
suction  of  the  Prime  Kesultant,  and,  incidentally,  let  the 
sun's  powerful  attraction  supply  the  place  of  the  proxi- 
mate body.  Then  we  shall  have  the  odd  spectacle  of  a 
great  long  rod  circling  the  sun — veritably  a  visualized 
vector.  Alas  for  our  oddly  constructed  planet!  In 
nearing  perihelion,  the  sun's  heat  has  proved  too  much 
for  it;  the  mercury,  indeed,  has  weathered  the  test,  but 
the  water  and  benzol  have  evaporated  and,  expanding, 
burst  the  tube  and  behold — a  comet ! 

In  the  next  chapter  I  shall  explain  how  the  real 
comets  are  formed  by  the  explosion  of  neighboring  stars 
spraying  their  molten  materials  in  all  directions,  some 
of  them  toward  us.  One  such  big  spray,  being  hurled 
with  great  force,  quickly  finds  itself  in  a  region  of  in- 
tense cold,  where  its  globules  soon  congeal,  sealing  within 
their  chilled  exteriors  all  sorts  of  stellar  gases  cooled 
down  to  inaction.  Continuing  onward  in  our  direction, 
at  high  velocity,  the  comet,  once  fairly  caught  in  our 
systemal  vortex,  acquires  an  orbit,  necessarily  greatly 
elongated,  but  varying  in  inclination  and  direction  of 
motion  according  to  the  angle  at  which  it  made  its  entry. 

During  transit  from  its  old  home  to  its  new,  a  jour- 
ney which  consumes  literally  thousands  of  years,  the  com- 
et (because  its  motion  is  one  of  explosive  and  not  gravita- 


166  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

tional  origin)  soon  finds  itself  so  far  away  from  strong 
rival  attractions  that  it  is  able  to  make  its  integral  at- 
traction among  its  scattered  parts  dominantly  felt,  and, 
eventually,  though  its  aggregate  mass  be  slight,  to  con- 
solidate them  into  a  single  ball,  or  perhaps  into  a  vorti- 
cal swirl,  or  gravitational  unit,  of  small  diameter.  After 
entering  the  sphere  of  the  sun's  influence  and  connect- 
ing up  with  its  predestined  orbit,  as  it  were,  the  comet 
forges  on  in  regular  course  to  its  perihelion.  Had  it  now 
nothing  but  its  projectile  momentum  to  depend  upon,  it 
would  lose  so  much  of  this  in  "turning  the  corner "  that 
it  would  inevitably  fall  in  upon  the  sun.  But,  thanks  to 
the  torsional  force  of  the  quiver  of  rays  of  attraction  that 
make  up  the  Prime  Eesultant,  the  comet  is  upheld 
against  the  straining  sun  and  whisked  past  his  eager 
grasp,  thwarting  that  Tantalus  of  his  expected  feast. 

The  crisis,  however,  has  not  been  without  its  serious 
effects.  The  fierce  heat  from  the  luminary  falling  upon 
the  massed  particles,  though  perhaps  not  intense  enough 
to  fuse,  their  crusts,  is  certainly  able  to  raise  their  gen- 
eral temperature  to  a  high  state,  thereby  causing  expan- 
sion of  the  confined  gases,  and  so  giving  rise  to  multi- 
tudinous explosions  of  every  degree  of  intensity.  These 
phenomena,  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  are  most  pro- 
nounced when  a  comet  is  very  near  the  sun;  which  is 
unfortunate  for  human  observation,  because  of  the  blind- 
ing contrast  of  the  solar  rays.  The  effects,  however,  are 
sometimes  sufficiently  pronounced  to  be  seen  and  studied 
even  despite  this  handicap,  and  reveal  themselves  in 
such  strange  phenomena  as  glowing  nuclei,  jets,  enve- 
lopes, coma,  and  tails. 

COMETARY  PHENOMENA  EXPLAINED 

In  nearing  the  sun,  the  integral  attraction  of  the 
comet  becomes  dwarfed  in  competition  with  the  rapidly 
augmenting  solar  attraction  and  a  new  disposition  of  its 
component  substances  is  rendered  imperative.  Instead 
of  preserving  its  old  sphericity,  therefore,  it  tends  to 
the  columnar  form,  with  its  heavier  elements  at  the  base 


THE  AUTHOR'S  THEORY  OF  THE  TIDES  167 

(sunward)  constituting  the  nucleus,  and  its  lighter  ele- 
ments, mounting  rearward  one  upon  the  other  in  the  or- 
der of  their  levity,  making  up  the  tail.  Newtonians, 
consumed  as  they  are  with  their  unreasoning  antipathy 
to  the  principle  of  equilibrium,  argue  that  the  tail  ought 
to  point  toward  the  sun,  his  attraction  upon  it  being  su- 
perior to  that  of  the  nucleus;  just  as  though  the  latter 
were  something  nailed  to  the  sky  and  had  itself  no  af- 
finity, not  to  mention  superior  affinity,  for  the  sun.  In 
nature,  comets  exhibit  tails  only  for  a  few  weeks,  or  at 
most  months,  before  and  after  their  perihelion  passage, 
and  invariably  point  them  away  from  the  sun.  Some- 
times these  tails  are  upwards  of  a  hundred  million  miles 
in  length,  and  in  order  for  the  tip  to  remain  behind  the 
nucleus,  the  former  has  been  known  to  cover  a  distance 
of  40,000  miles  in  a  single  second! 

Imagine  such  a  comet  suddenly  clapped  into  a  giant 
test-tube  and  the  tube  gently  lowered  to  the  sun;  where 
would  you  expect  to  find  the  nucleus?  Surely  not  in  the 
top  of  the  tube !  And  the  lighter  gases,  would  you  look 
for  them  to  precipitate  to  the  bottom?  Of  course  not! 
Conceive  the  tube  with  its  contents  translated  back 
again  to  its  old  place  in  the  heavens  and  the  container  an- 
nihilated, can  you  conjure  up  any  good  gravitational  rea- 
son why  the  tail  should  now  alter  its  poise f  No!  Com- 
etary  tails,  far  from  contradicting  the  principle  of  gravi- 
tation, positively  illustrate  and  confirm  it,  as  do  they 
likewise  vindicate  the  universality  of  the  natural  law  of 
equilibrium. 

Yet  such  is  the  singular  perversity  of  Newtonian 
philosophy,  that  it  has  actually  gone  to  work  and  in- 
vented a  new  cosmic  "force"  to  counteract  gravity  in 
order  to  bring  about  the  very  thing  gravitation  implies! 
Astronomers  call  this  chimerical  thing  "light  repul- 
sion ",  and,  to  eke  out  its  already  developed  shortcom- 
ings, they  have  tacked  on  to  it  an  even  more  ethereal 
idea,  which  they  call  "electric  repulsion ".  They  tell 
us,  with  Pickwickian  seriousness,  that  the  sun's  light 
exerts  a  pressure  upon  the  infinitesimal  motes  of  co- 
metic  matter,  not  only  strong  enough  to  counteract  the 


168  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

solar  gravity,  but  also  to  carry  the  particles  outward 
with  the  velocity  of  light  itself.  Expanding  this  idea, 
they  go  on  and  picture  to  a  wondering  laity  how  come- 
tary  tails  are  shorn  away  in  the  very  act  of  growing  on, 
and,  waxing  still  more  eloquent,  how  they  are  carried 
away  on  the  caudaliferous  ether  to  distant  bournes 
where,  foregathering  with  other  such  ghostly  moultings, 
they  hatch  out  new  planetary  systems.  Several  mathe- 
maticians have  gained  undying  fame  by  calculating  this 
and  that  about  the  size  of  these  motes  and  denning  the 
relative  intensity  of  light  and  electric  pressures  as  con- 
trasted with  gravity,  etc.,  etc.,  so  that  the  theory  may 
now  be  said  to  have  as  respectable  standing  among  New- 
tonians as  the  old  standbys  of  uncaused  motions,  irredu- 
cible momenta,  and  the  rest. 

On  the  occasion  of  its  initial  visit  to  the  sun  the 
comet  is  naturally  charged  with  a  greater  cargo  of  gases 
than  at  any  subsequent  apparition ;  hence,  after  a  few  re- 
turns, it  ceases  to  be  visible  to  the  naked  eye  and  then  be- 
comes telescopic  only,  or  is  lost  altogether  to  human  sight. 
As  long  as  the  comet  continues  rich  in  occluded  gases 
(whether  the  visit  be  its  first  or  not)  and  its  perihelion 
distance  is  sufficiently  short,  its  advent  is  accompanied 
by  an  interesting  display  of  celestial  pyrotechnics.  After 
playing  its  harlequin  tricks  for  a  gay  month  or  two  and 
casting  its  fiery  confetti  in  the  eyes  of  the  staid  old 
planets,  it  returns  on  its  long  road  through  the  dark  to 
its  home  in  aphelion.  As  it  so  retires,  it  collects  its  scat- 
tered elements — its  integral  attraction  more  and  more 
reasserting  itself  as  the  sun  is  left  behind — until,  after 
no  long  while,  it  rolls  itself  up  into  a  ball  as  self-con- 
tainedly  as  the  earth  herself.  With  each  return,  the  ag- 
ing comet  becomes  less  flamboyant,  its  orbital  eccentric- 
ity less  pronounced,  its  inclination  less  arbitrary;  in  fine, 
it  grows  domesticated  and  turns  into  an  asteroid.  It  is 
not  true,  however,  that  all  asteroids  have  once  been 
comets  or,  conversely,  that  all  comets  become  in  time 
asteroids;  for  many  of  the  asteroids  are  native  to  our 
system,  the  same  as  the  planets,  while  the  comets  may 
graduate  into  satellites,  or,  indeed,  may  end  their  careers 


THE  AUTHOR'S  THEORY  or  THE  TIDES  169 

by  falling  in  upon  the  sun  or  one  of  the  planets.  This 
much,  nevertheless,  can  be  asserted  without  qualification, 
namely,  that  those  asteroids  ivhose  eccentricity  of  orbit 
is  strongly  marked  are  of  cometary  origin. 

Comets  have  their  little  brothers — called  meteors. 
This  is  only  to  be  expected  from  the  very  nature  of  the 
case.  It  would  be  extraordinary  indeed  if  by  the  explo- 
sion of  a  star  only  one  fragment,  or  one  congeries  of 
fragments,  should  reach  us;  rather  should  we  expect  a 
long  train  of  scattered  debris,  many  millions  of  miles  in 
length,  composed  of  congealed  globules  of  all  sorts  of 
miscellaneous  sizes.  Thus  Comet  I,  of  1861,  has  been 
identified  with  one  stream  of  meteors,  Biela's  comet  with 
another,  and  so  on.  Not  only  this,  but  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  spectroscopic  evidence  that  comets  possess  a 
chemical  constitution  strikingly  similar  to  that  of  me- 
teorites, which  latter,  of  course,  are  only  meteors  that 
have  managed  to  reach  the  earth.  All  of  these  objects, 
issuing  in  a  fused  state  from  the  shattered  hulk  of  their 
parent  star,  and  consequently  more  or  less  finely  divided, 
cool  quickly  in  the  frigid  realms  of  space,  and  so  remain 
until  their  projectile  motion  is  suddenly  arrested,  or 
they  come  near  the  fiery  furnace  of  the  sun.  When 
either  of  these  events  occurs,  the  meteor  explodes  because 
of  the  sudden  expansion  of  its  freshly  heated  gases  with- 
in. The  reason  why  only  the  larger  meteors  attain  the 
earth  in  safety  is  because  the  friction  of  our  atmosphere 
is  insufficient,  by  reason  of  its  shallowness  and  lack  of 
greater  density,  to  do  more  than  slightly  fuse  their  out- 
side, as  actual  cases  have  proven.  Sizable  meteors  that 
do  explode  are  known  as  bolides. 

EEMARKABLE  COMETS 

In  order  to  appreciate  the  interpretive  value  of  the 
principles  just  elucidated,  the  reader  should  compare  the 
descriptions  of  past  comets  given  in  such  books  as  Flam- 
marion's  Popular  Astronomy.  Take,  for  example,  the 
great  comet  of  1843,  which  passed  its  perihelion  within 
33,000  miles  (less  than  1-25  of  the  sun's  diameter)  of  the 


170  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

solar  surface,  at  a  velocity  of  342  miles  a  second,  through 
a  hot  blast  capable  of  vaporizing  steel,  and  in  the  teeth 
of  a  coronal  resistance  of  undoubted  immensity — yet 
came  through  the  ordeal  apparently  unscathed,  and 
without  any  perceptible  retardation.  More  than  this,  it 
brandished  a  tail  198  million  miles  in  length!  The  tail 
kept  well  behind  the  comet,  consequently  the  tip  of  it 
must  have  swept  through  space  at  the  velocity  of  about 
40,000  miles  in  one  second.  Supposing  that  the  tail  aver- 
aged this  length  for  as  much  as  a  single  week,  then,  ac- 
cording to  the  hypothesis  of  light  repulsion,  the  comet 
must  have  simultaneously  grown  and  lost  some  700  of 
these  appendages! 

Of  Encke  's  comet  we  are  told,  first,  that  its  period  is 
diminishing,  second,  that  it  is  not  doing  so  as  fast  as  for- 
merly, and,  third,  that  its  head  gradually  contracts  as 
it  nears  the  sun  and  expands  again  as  it  recedes.  As- 
tronomers have  been  able  to  suggest  only  one  way  to  ex- 
plain the  first  two  phenomena,  namely,  by  postulating  the 
ether  as  slightly  resistent — "not  enough  to  hurt  but  just 
enough  to  serve".  Newton,  you  remember,  was  scrupu- 
lously particular  to  have  it  understood  that  the  ether 
is  absolutely  imponderable,  knowing  as  he  did  full  well 
that  even  the  least  possible  retardation  of  the  planets 
would  inevitably  destroy  the  ' '  divinely-ordained "  equal- 
ity of  the  centripetal  and  centrifugal  forces  and  bring  the 
whole  system  to  grief.  But  even  if  we  are  gracious 
enough  to  wink  at  this  modern  indiscretion,  or  to  concede 
the  paradox  of  a  medium  by  its  resistance  causing  a 
hastening  of  the  comet,  as  these  ingenious  savants  de- 
clare, we  cannot  decently  go  further  and  admit  that  the 
degree  of  that  resistance  is  declining  in  the  same  gallop- 
ing ratio  as  required  by  the  premises. 

The  mystery  is  easily  cleared  when  it  is  recognized 
that  Encke's  comet  is  a  comparatively  recent  intruder 
into  the  solar  system;  as  is  indicated  by  the  fact  of  its 
having  the  highest  eccentricity  among  the  short-period 
comets.  This,  taken  in  connection  with  the  additional 
fact  that  it  is  the  innermost  of  its  kind  (where  the  vorti- 
cal force  is  strongest),  renders  the  disciplining  process, 


THE  AUTHOR'S  THEORY  OF  THE  TIDES  171 

at  its  present  stage,  especially  noticeable  and  rapid.  In 
short,  its  peculiarities  of  motion  are  owing  to  the  gradual 
rounding  of  its  orbit,  the  effects  naturally  dwindling 
as  the  process  of  approximation  to  perfect  balance  pro- 
gresses. As  for  the  contraction  of  the  comet 's  head  on 
approaching  perihelion,  this  is  obviously  due  to  nothing 
else  than  the  columnifying  of  the  fused  cometary  nucleus 
by  the  sun's  differential  attraction — a  phenomenon  of 
equilibrism  pure  and  simple. 

LATITUDE  VARIATIONS 

About  the  year  1890  astronomers  began  the  investi- 
gation of  a  unique  phenomenon.  This  consists  in  the 
circumstance  that  the  latitudes  of  every  place  on  the 
earth's  surface  vary  slightly  from  day  to  day  the  year 
through,  though  they  always  return  periodically  to  what 
may  be  termed  their  home  parallel — much  as  the  sun 
crosses  and  recrosses  the  equator.  In  more  graphic 
language,  the  earth  seems  to  wabble  on  its  axis  as  though 
that  were  a  material  axle  and  had  worn  itself  thin  in  its 
bearing,  giving  room  for  play.  To  illustrate:  Let  A 
be  a  point  on  a  given  parallel  and  B  another  point  on  the 
same  parallel,  but  180°  distant  in  longitude;  then  when 
observation  shows  the  latitude  of  A  to  be  slightly  above 
the  parallel  on  which  normally  it  belongs,  the  latitude 
of  B  on  that  same  day  will  be  found  just  the  same  dis- 
tance below,  and  vice  versa.  To  explain  this  phenomenon 
a  dozen  hypotheses  of  various  sorts  have  been  advanced, 
but,  so  far,  none  has  attained  the  stage  of  demonstration. 
However,  all  astronomers  are  a  unit  in  believing  that  the 
phenomenon  can  be  due  only  to  an  actual  shifting  of  the 
earth's  axis  with  reference  to  the  crust.  In  this  view  I, 
for  one,  do  not  concur. 

Doctor  S.  C.  Chandler,  the  eminent  American  as- 
tronomer, has  ably  and  carefully  analyzed  the  observa- 
tional data  and  found  that  this  movement  of  the  pole  can 
be  expressed  by  a  formula  containing  two  terms,  one  of 
which  varies  between  85-1000  and  185-1000  of  a  second  of 
arc,  covering  a  period  of  about  430  days,  and  the  other 


172  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

between  115-1000  and  155-1000  sec.,  whose  fluctuating 
cycle  is  one  year.  These  displacements,  in  terms  of  feet, 
are  respectively  between  9  and  20,  and  12  and  15  (a  sec- 
ond of  arc  of  the  earth's  surface  being  almost  precisely 
100  feet)  and  they  exhibit  themselves  in  the  form  of  min- 
ute rotations  of  the  pole,  produced,  like  the  precessional 
circle,  contra-clockwise. 

In  another  place  I  have  sought  to  emphasize  the  cir- 
cumstance that  since  Newton's  day  many  fundamental 
scientific  truths  have  come  to  light  for  which  he  made  no 
anticipatory  provision.  Here  is  a  case  in  point.  Had 
he  known  of  the  existence  of  this  phenomenon,  in  addi- 
tion to  all  the  other  wonderful  facts  astronomy  has  un- 
earthed since  his  time,  it  might  have  occurred  to  him  to 
consider,  at  least  provisionally,  whether  the  torsions  of 
the  sun  and  moon  upon  the  earth's  equatorial  ring  could 
not  better  apply  to  this  problem  than  to  that  of  preces- 
sion, for  which  he  did  employ  them.  He  might  then  have 
raised  in  his  mind  the  reflection  that  CYCLICAL  CAUSES 
should  produce  CYCLICAL  EFFECTS,  and  discarded,  before  he 
had  gone  too  far,  the  absurd  hypothesis  that  the  annual 
attraction  of  the  sun  on  the  earth's  ring  produces  a  di- 
minutive arc  of  a  big  circle,  rather  than  the  diminutive 
complete  circle  it  should  naturally  produce.  In  the  new 
problem  there  is  pressing  need  of  the  very  causes  Newton 
thus  preempted  for  precession,  but  no  astronomer  dares 
to  broach  such  a  thing  as  the  diversion  of  them  to  this 
new  use,  because  the  greater  problem  of  precession 
would  then  be  revived  and  make  necessary  a  complete  re- 
construction and  readjustment  of  the  whole  theory  of  the 
science — for  which  drastic  course  the  powers  that  con- 
trol are  not  yet  ready. 

So,  instead  of  adopting  the  true  reasons  to  explain 
the  phenomenon  in  question,  be  the  consequences  what 
they  may,  astronomers  are  groping  about  for  some  plau- 
sible subterfuge  that  may  serve  to  allay  their  troubled 
spirits  and  strengthen  their  faith  in  what  they  must 
know,  deep  down  in  their  hearts,  is  not  a  science  at  all, 
but  a  pseudo  science  almost  as  visionary  as  astrology  it- 
self. I  am  speaking  now  of  theoretical  astronomy,  re- 


THE  AUTHOR  's  THEORY  OF  THE  TIDES  173 

member,  not  of  practical  astronomy;  for  of  the  latter  I 
have  no  words  but  of  praise.  We  have  just  seen  how,  in 
the  case  of  cometary  tails,  astronomers  have  invented 
light  repulsion  to  take  the  place  of  the  principle  of  equi- 
librium, which  they  wrongfully  discarded,  and  we  may 
now  expect  them  to  settle  upon  some  equally  grotesque 
theory  to  account  for  the  present  phenomenon  so  as  not 
to  disturb  Newton's  irrational  explanation  of  precession. 
Lord  Kelvin,  Newcomb,  and  others  have  sought  to  ex- 
plain the  mystery  on  the  basis  of  Newton's  tidal  theory 
by  first  deducing  the  coefficient  of  the  earth's  elasticity 
and  employing  this  as  a  new  basis  on  which  to  found 
further  deductions.  Others  try  to  connect  the  anomaly 
up  with  continental  risings  and  sinkings,  with  earth- 
quake cycles,  with  atmospheric  shiftings,  with  the  alter- 
nating deposition  and  melting  of  snow  and  ice,  and  what- 
not. 

Paradoxical  as  it  may  sound  to  the  ears  of  astrono- 
mers, it  is  NOT  TRUE  that  the  earth's  axis  shifts  within  her 
crust;  nor  is  it  true,  as  they  imagine,  that  the  cycles  de- 
scribed are  basically  due  to  long-period  gyrations.  On 
the  contrary,  the  phenomenon  is  produced  by  diurnal 
oscillations  of  the  planet  as  a  whole  and  the  annual  and 
430-day  periods  are  simply  periodical  changes  in  the  am- 
plitudes of  those  diurnal  movements.  An  illustration 
may  help  to  make  the  matter  clearer:  You  remember 
how,  in  Foucault's  celebrated  pendulum  experiment  (by 
which  he  proved  the  rotation  of  the  earth),  the  tip  of  the 
pendulum  was  made,  at  the  end  of  each  swing,  to  cut 
into  a  little  circular  ridge  of  sand.  At  the  close  of  the 
experiment  the  pendulum  tip  left  its  tiny  dents  all  round 
the  circle  as  the  only  record  of  the  oscillations,  so  that  a 
stranger  happening  upon  the  scene  after  the  pendulum 
had  been  removed  might  easily  have  supposed  that  the 
marks  were  caused  by  a  toothed  wheel  rolled  round  the 
ridge,  or  in  any  way,  indeed,  save  the  right  one. 

Now,  astronomical  observations,  especially  in  cases 
of  such  super-delicacy  as  required  in  this  case,  cannot  be 
made  at  any  hour  of  the  day  or  night,  but  only  at  the  most 
propitious  time  of  all — midnight.  That  is  to  say,  the 


174  FHOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

marks  or  "indentations"  are  registered  twenty-four 
hours  apart — just  as  Foucault's  pendulum's  dents  were 
spaced  by  a  second  or  so.  A  record  being  kept  of  these 
latitude  observations  would  speak  only  for  themselves, 
but  would  give  no  hint  as  to  what  occured  between  their 
makings.  Now,  astronomers  have  mistakenly  assumed 
out  of  hand  that  the  condition  between  times  is  the  same, 
or  virtually  the  same,  as  at  the  moments  when  the  ob- 
servations are  made — in  other  words,  they  see  the  dents 
in  the  act  of  being  made  in  the  circular  ridge  of  sand, 
but  they  do  not  see,  or  allow  for,  the  vibrations  of  the 
pendulum  in  between;  they  recognize  the  existence  of 
the  long-period  variations,  but  remain  blind  to  the  even 
more  significant  diurnal  ones. 

We  have  only  to  suppose  that  the  earth,  besides  its 
ordinary  diurnal  revolution,  wabbles  once  around  on  its 
true  axis  during  each  day,  and  from  day  to  day,  in  a 
rhythmical  manner,  with  only  the  lengths  of  the  ampli- 
tudes varying  seasonally  and  monthly  according  to  the 
changing  positions  of  the  sun  and  moon,  to  which  lat- 
ter we  naturally  turn  for  the  dynamical  explanation. 
Thus  may  we  combine  consistently  the  actuality  of  daily 
oscillations  with  Chandler's  long  periods  of  a  year  and 
430  days  respectively.  These  oscillations,  be  it  observed, 
are  not  simple  rocking  motions,  back  and  forth  like  a 
pendulum  (which  would  not  harmonize  the  phenomena), 
but  a  rotatory  motion,  which  the  term  wabbling  aptly  de- 
scribes. The  conditions  require  that  when  A  is  on  the 
meridian  of  midnight  with  a  latitude  plus,  B  at  its  mid- 
night, twelve  hours  later,  must  show  a  latitude  by  the 
same  amount  minus.  A  wabble  of  a  period  of  twenty- 
four  hours,  cooperating  with  the  diurnal  rotation,  sup- 
plies this  requirement.  Were  it  possible  to  make  accurate 
observations  at  all  hours  the  same  as  at  midnight,  it 
would  be  found  that  both  A  and  B  shift  their  latitude  all 
day  long  with  a  double  wave-like  motion,  each  being  half 
the  day  above,  and  the  other  half  below,  its  home  parallel. 
This  wabble  varies  in  radius  according  to  the  season  of 
the  year  and  the  position  of  the  moon,  hence  the  varia- 
tional  showings  of  long  period. 


THE  AUTHOR  's  THEORY  OF  THE  TIDES  175 

What  causes  this  phenomenon!  is  naturally  the  next 
question.  I  attribute  it  to  the  same  causes  that  Newtou 
erroneously  employed  to  explain  precession;  only  in- 
stead of  referring  the  solar  and  lunar  attractions  spe- 
cifically to  the  equatorial  ring,  I  prefer  to  refer  them  to 
the  more  general  entity  of  the  earth's  center  of  gravity. 
I  am  logically  privileged  to  make  use  of  these  causes,  be- 
cause I  have  freed  them  by  employing  others  to  explain 
the  phenomenon  of  precession. 

The  earth  having  been  described  already  in  these 
pages  as  a  body  seeking  its  lowest  center  of  gravity  with 
reference  to  the  sum  of  the  stellar  attractions,  it  follows 
that  that  center  is  eccentrically  located  with  respect  to 
her  center  of  figure;  that  is  to  say,  the  two  do  not  coin- 
cide, but  the  c.  g.  is  slightly  north  of  the  c.  f .  In  this 
condition  we  have  a  repetition  of  the  basis  upon  which  I 
predicated  the  explanation  of  the  moon's  longitudinal  li- 
bration.  (See,  also,  Chap.  XIII.)  The  distinction  be- 
tween that  case  and  this,  however,  lies  partly  in  the 
fact  that  the  earth  is  supplied  with  mobile  oceans,  where- 
as the  moon  is  solid  clear  through ;  and  parti}7  in  the  dis- 
tances, sizes,  configurations,  and  relative  motions  of  the 
attracting  bodies.  The  principle  of  purchase,  or  lever- 
age, accordingly  again  comes  into  play,  necessitating  ap- 
plication of  the  rule  of  inverse  cubes  in  passing  upon  the 
relative  perturbations  of  the  sun  and  moon — our  old  ratio 
of  1  to  2.25.  That  such  a  complicated  combination  of 
dynamical  factors  as  this  should  produce  diurnal  oscil- 
lations of  the  earth  seems  to  me  self-evident,  and  I  shall 
therefore  not  labor  the  point.  Nor  do  I  think  it  neces- 
sary to  enlarge  on  the  presence  of  the  annual  term  found 
by  Dr.  Chandler's  analysis.  The  430-days  term,  how- 
ever, demands  elucidation: 

W-ere  the  sun  and  moon  always  in  alignment  with  the 
earth,  and  did  they  not  move  from  their  places,  the  si- 
dereal day  would  be  the  same  as  the  solar  day  and  the 
" lunar  day"  (if  we  may  permit  ourselves  this  last  ex- 
pression for  the  sake  of  simplicity).  In  that  case,  there 
would  be  no  fluctuation  of  latitude  at  all.  But  the  moon 


176  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

is  not  stationary;  she  steadily  gains  over  the  imaginary 
position  we  have  just  pictured  her  in,  a  position,  how- 
ever, which  is  monthly  realized  when  she  is  said  to  be 
new.  Now,  the  time  elapsing  between  new  moon  and 
new  moon  is  known  as  the  synodical  month,  and  its 
length  is  29.53059  days,  whereas  the  sidereal  month  is 
only  27.32166  days,  consequently  the  latter  in  one  year 
gains  on  the  first  2.20893  times  as  many  days  as  27.32166 
days  is  contained  times  in  365 J4  days.  Performing  the 
operations,  we  obtain  29.5  days,  which,  because  the 
moon's  torsional  effect  is  2.25  times  as  great  as  the  sun's, 
must  now  be  multiplied  accordingly,  yielding  66.4  days. 
Adding  this  to  the  annual  period,  we  have  431.6  days, 
which  is  a  very  close  approximation  to  Dr.  Chandler's 
second  term,  considering  the  many  uncertainties  and  dif- 
ficulties involved. 

A  very  interesting,  not  to  say  significant,  coincidence 
brought  out  by  this  avenue  of  investigation  deserves  to 
be  mentioned.  If  we  average  Dr.  Chandler's  four  frac- 
tions (125-1000  sec.)  and  the  two  periods  (398)  days,  and 
multiply  them  together — this  on  my  hypothesis  that  the 
variation  is  of  diurnal  causation — we  obtain  49 ".75,  a 
quantity  startlingly  near  the  50"  .2  arc  annually  added 
to  the  precessional  circle! 


vn 


THE  NEBULAE  HYPOTHESIS 

WHAT  militated  most  against  the  earlier  accep- 
tance of  Newton's  doctrine  of  the  universality  of 
gravitation  was  the  unreadiness  of  his  genera- 
tion, accustomed  though  it  was  to  the  acceptance  of  ideas 
on  faith,  to  believe  that  the  force  of  gravity,  any  more 
than  any  other  force  of  which  they  knew,  could  act  across 
a  void.  It  took  the  world  of  science  half  a  century  to  as- 
similate this  generalization,  familiar  though  it  may  now 
seem  to  us.  Unfortunately,  the  very  fact  that,  in  spite 
of  its  initial  season  of  incredibility,  it  nevertheless  won 
acceptance  in  the  end,  became  a  powerful  lever  in  support 
of  wild  hypotheses  whose  only  merit  lay  in  their  novelty. 
Since  then,  a  premium  seems  to  be  placed  on  extrava- 
gance in  invention,  regardless  of  the  element  of  proba- 
bility or  plausibility,  and  the  only  rule  that  appears  to 
be  recognized  is,  that  inherited  prejudices  shall  not  be 
antagonized  or  impugned.  All  comers  are  welcome  who 
will  lend  a  hand  at  shoring  up  or  patching  up  the  su- 
perstructure of  theory,  but  woe  to  such  as  I  who  would 
raze  the  crazy  structure,  in  whole  or  in  part,  with  intent 
to  broaden  and  strengthen  the  -foundations.  In  this 
chapter  and  the  next  my  purpose  is  to  give  the  reader  as 
clear  an  idea  as  possible  of  the  various  cosmogonical 
theories  that  the  hierarchy  of  science  recognizes  as  or- 
thodoxically  sound  and  eligible,  and  then  to  criticize 
them  from  a  practical,  rather  than  a  technical,  stand- 
point. 


178  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

The  most  famous  name  in  the  annals  of  astronomy 
since  Newton  is  that  of  Pierre  Simon,  Marquis  de  Laplace 
(1749-1827).  The  greatest  debt  we  owe  him,  in  my  esti- 
mation, is  not  his  so-called  Nebular  Hypothesis,  not  his 
mathematical  contributions  to  astronomical  science,  but 
his  specific  and  authoritative  confession  that  Newton's 
system  is  deplorably  and  fundamentally  deficient.  I 
feel  sure  that  the  laity  of  the  present  day  labor  under 
the  impression  that  the  foundation  provided  by  Newton 
was  sufficiently  broad  and  substantial  to  support  the  en- 
tire superstructure  of  the  science  for  all  time,  but  such 
is  very  far  from  being  the  case,  as  professional  astrono- 
mers well  know.  In  fact,  it  is  astonishing  how  little 
Newton  really  did  explain,  when  we  come  to  compare  his 
actual  achievement  with  what  still  remained  to  be  ac- 
complished; verily  was  he  right  when  he  said,  "I  know 
not  what  the  world  will  think  of  my  labors,  but  to  myself 
it  seems  that  I  have  been  but  a  child  playing  on  the  sea- 
shore; now  finding  some  pebble  rather  more  polished 
and  now  some  shell  more  agreeably  variegated  than 
another,  while  the  immense  ocean  of  truth  extended  it- 
self unexplored  before  me. ' '  Here  are  a  feiv  of  the  many 
things  he  did  not  explain : 

The  origin  of  the  earth's  rotation  on  its  axis,  and 
the  reason  for  its  continuance. 

The  origin  of  the  earth's  " rectilinear  motion",  and 
the  cause  of  its  continuance. 

The  origin  of  the  axial  rotations  and  orbital  motions 
of  the  other  planets,  and  the  moon. 

The  origin  of  the  sun's  axial  rotation  and  equatorial 
acceleration. 

The  genesis  of  the  sun  and  of  the  planets. 

Why  the  moon  does  not  fall  in  upon  the  earth,  or  the 
earth  and  planets  upon  the  sun. 

Why  the  orbits  of  all  the  planets  are  nearly  circular. 

Why  the  planets  rotate  on  their  axes  in  the  same 
direction. 

Why  they  all  revolve  around  the  sun,  in  the  same 
direction. 


THE  NEBULAR  HYPOTHESIS  179 

Why  they  revolve  so  nearly  in  the  same  plane. 

What  comets  are. 

Why  these  revolve  in  elongated  orbits  so  dissimilar 
from  planetary  orbits. 

Whether  the  sun  moves  in  space,  and  why,  and  how. 
x  What  effect  the  stellar  attractions  exert  upon  the 
solar  system,  internally  and  externally. 

The  source  of  the  sun's  heat. 

The  nature  of  the  stars  and  their  mutual  relations. 

The  cause  of  the  moon's  secular  acceleration. 

The  origin  of  the  earth's  equatorial  ring  and  her 
continental  configurations. 

It  was  to  supply  some  of  the  deficiencies  above 
enumerated  that  Laplace  invented  his  celebrated  Nebular 
Hypothesis,  which  he  first  announced  in  1796,  and  twelve 
years  afterwards  republished,  with  certain  corrections 
and  additions.  In  brief,  his  scheme  was  this: 

The  solar  system  originally  existed  in  the  form  of  a 
gaseous  nebula  that  extended  out  from  the  center  of  the 
sun  (which  he  regarded  as  stationary)  to  somewhat  be- 
yond the  orbit  of  the  outermost  planet  (at  the  time  of 
his  death  Neptune  was  yet  undiscovered).  This  nebula 
had  an  inherent  motion  of  rotation  around  an  axis  at 
right  angles  to  its  plane  and  passing  through  the  center 
of  the  sun.  At  first  the  nebula  was  probably  spheroidal 
in  shape,  but  by  virtue  of  its  axial  rotation  it  was  gradu- 
ally flattened  out  into  a  discal  form.  In  the  course  of 
time  the  rotary  motion,  by  reason  of  the  contraction  of 
the  mass,  became  accelerated,  so  that  finally  the  nebula 
spun  around  so  swiftly  that  it  cast  off  an  outside  ring. 
Relieved  of  the  weight,  the  residuum  revolved  all  the 
faster,  and  a  second  ring  was  cast  off.  This  process  con- 
tinued then  until  as  many  rings  had  been  thus  shed  as 
there  are  planets,  and  there  finally  remained  only  the  cen- 
tral residual  mass  which  now  constitutes  our  sun.  This 
latter,  being  eternally  hot  and  bright,  naturally  suggested 
to  Laplace  that  the  nebula  was  incandescent  to  begin 
with  and  retained  its  temperature  throughout  the  pro- 
cess, an  inference  all  the  more  plausible  because  the  in- 


180  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

terior  of  the  earth,  also,  is  known  to  possess  a  high  tem- 
perature. 

The  several  rings  thus  thrown  off  (or  abandoned,  as 
some  insist)  in  good  time  gathered  into  balls  of  nebulous 
matter  possessing  axial  rotations,  like  the  parent  nebula, 
and,  following  precedent,  likewise  exchanged  the  sphe- 
roidal for  the  discal  shape  and  eventually  flung  off 
smaller  rings,  which  later  developed  into  satellites. 

Granting  the  premises,  then,  Laplace,  up  to  this 
stage,  had  ostensibly  accounted  for  these  things:  first, 
the  revolution  of  the  planets  in  the  same  direction;  sec- 
ond, their  revolution  in  (about)  the  same  plane;  third, 
the  near-circularity  of  their  orbits,  and,  fourth,  the  solar 
heat. 

He  had  still,  however,  to  account  for  the  fact  that  all 
the  planets  rotate,  like  the  earth,  on  their  axes,  and  in  the 
same  direction  in  which  they  orbitally  revolve.  To  do 
this,  he  gratuitously  assumed  that  the  nebula  revolved 
in  hydrostatic  equilibrium,  that  is  to  say,  like  a  rigid 
solid.  His  reason  for  so  doing  was  this :  the  planets  roll 
on  the  perimeters  of  their  orbits  like  wagon  wheels  along 
a  cartway,  that  is  to  say,  their  distal  halves  (as  viewed 
from  the  sun)  move  fonvard  while  their  inner  halves 
move  relatively  backward.  It  was  essential,  therefore, 
for  the  sake  of  mechanical  consistency,  to  depict  the 
outer  edge  of  the  cast-off  ring  as  traveling  faster  than 
the  inner  edge,  just  as  the  circumference  of  a  flywheel 
travels  at  a  faster  rate  than  the  inside  of  its  rim. 

As  the  data  stood  during  Laplace's  life,  the  Hypo- 
thesis correlated  them  all  quite  faithfully,  a  circumstance 
which  doubtless  accounts  for  the  amazing  hold  it  so  long 
retained  upon  the  scientific  mind.  The  first  notable 
departure  from  it  came  in  the  fifth  decade  of  the  past 
century,  when  heat  was  identified  as  a  mode  of  motion. 
However,  this  departure  was  more  in  the  nature  of  a 
development  or  vindication  than  a  contradiction,  inas- 
much as  it  relieved  the  theorists  from  defending  the  ab- 
surdity of  the  nebula's  maintaining  its  temperature  in 
the  face  of  the  cold  of  space.  But  the  day  of  disaster  ir- 
retrievable was  on  its  way.  In  1877,  Prof.  Asaph  Hall, 


THE  NEBULAR  HYPOTHESIS  181 

of  Washington,  discovered  the  two  moons  of  the  planet 
Mars,  Deimos  and  Phobos,  neither  one  of  them  more  than 
seven  miles  in  diameter,  and  incidentally  ascertained  that 
the  latter  (and  inner)  of  these  revolves  around  its  pri- 
mary more  than  three  times  as  rapidly  as  the  planet  ro- 
tates on  its  own  axis.  Some  five  years  later,  Keeler 
proved,  spectroscopically,  what  Clerk  Maxwell  had  pre- 
viously shown  deductively,  that  the  rings  of  Saturn  are 
neither  liquid  or  solid,  as  theretofore  supposed,  but  con- 
sist of  multitudes  of  minute  satellites,  and  that  the  inner 
ones  revolve  faster  than  the  planet  rotates  on  its  axis. 
These  two  incompatible  facts,  added  to  the  more  recent 
discoveries  of  the  so-called  retrograde  motions  of  three 
or  four  of  the  satellites,  and  taken  in  connection  with  its 
violation  of  the  doctrine  of  conservation  of  moment  of 
moments,  have  virtually  given  the  Hypothesis  its  quietus. 

CRITICISM  OF  THE  NEBULAR  HYPOTHESIS 

You  may  ask,  of  what  use  is  further  criticism  of 
Laplace's  Hypothesis  if  the  death  blow  has  already  been 
administered?  My  answer  is,  that  science  has  not  yet 
sufficiently  learned  the  lessons  the  career  and  final  fate 
of  the  Hypothesis  are  capable  of  teaching.  The  truth  is, 
it  should  never  have  required  killing ;  it  was  too  fatuously 
and  inherently  absurd  on  its  face  to  have  merited  more 
than  passing  consideration.  Of  what  use  is  it  to  postu- 
late the  axiomatically  impossible  and  then  to  ring  the 
changes  on  it  for  a  century,  only  to  learn  in  the  end,  by 
painful  experience,  what  was  but  too  glaringly  patent  at 
the  outset?  I  give  everybody  out  of  Bedlam  credit  for 
knowing,  a  priori,  that  a  gaseous  nebula  six  billion  miles 
across,  far  thinner  than  atmospheric  air,  could  by  no  pos- 
sibility, whether  in  the  past,  the  present,  or  the  future, 
rotate  like  a  solid,  spontaneously  and  without  motive 
power,  for  thousands  of  years  on  end !  If  our  intelligence 
cannot  teach  us  obvious  things  like  this,  it  can  teach  us 
nothing,  and  we  may  as  well  give  up  all  efforts  at  learn- 
ing. Should  scientists  have  needed  to  await  the  discovery 
of  Phobos  in  order  to  learn  from  that  midget  so  rudimen- 


182  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

tary  a  lesson  f  But  let  us  expose  to  ourselves  the  full  ex- 
tent of  our  recent  folly  in  the  hope  of  deriving  wisdom  not 
to  go  on  perpetrating  similar  lunacies  in  the  future. 

To  begin  with,  what  think  you  was  the  degree  of 
density  of  the  postulated  nebula  1  This  is  easy  of  cal- 
culation. Spheres  being  to  each  other  as  their  cubes,  and 
Neptune's  distance  from  the  sun  being  6400  times  the 
solar  radius,  it  follows,  that  when  the  nebula  filled  the 
Neptunian  orbit,  every  cubic  inch  of  the  sun's  substance 
was  dispersed  in  a  cubical  space  533  feet  each  way,  that 
is  to  say,  a  space  whose  six  sides  are  each  equal  to  a  large- 
sized  city  block !  Imagine  a  great  air-tght  box  of  this 
magnitude,  filled  with  air  of  sea-level  density,  and  then 
imagine  this  air  pumped  out  and  condensed  into  liquid 
form ;  it  would  fill  a  hall  sixty  feet  each  way.  Eeserve  but 
two  tablespoonfuls  of  this  liquid  (pouring  all  the  rest 
away)  and  heat  the  same  as  hot  as  your  imagination  can 
picture,  and  then  inject  it  back  again  into  the  big  ex- 
hausted space  from  which  it  was  pumped,  and  you  will 
have  a  mathematically  accurate  idea  of  the  nature  of  the 
Laplacian  nebula!  Physicists  inform  us  that,  despite 
their  utmost  care  and  ingenuity,  they  are  unable  to  pro- 
duce artificial  vacua  within  1-1000  part  as  rare  as  this ; 
Let  fall  from  your  eyes,  I  pray,  the  glasses  of  prejudice 
and  look,  and,  looking,  do  some  sane  and  sincere  thinking. 
Do  you,  in  your  inmost  soul,  believe  that  such  a  hyper- 
vacuum  could  and  actually  did  rotate  on  its  axis  LIKE  A 
RIGID  SOLID  and,  so  rotating,  fling  off  great  rings  by  cen- 
trifugal force !  Have  you  in  all  your  reading  come  upon 
a  fairy  story,  a  superstition,  a  dream,  an  hallucination  so 
utterly  abandoned  and  nonsensical  as  this?  Yet,  for 
nearly  a  century  has  this  absurdity  been  taught  by  a 
science  that  prides  itself  upon  being  the  only  ' '  exact ' ' 
one  outside  of  mathematics !  If  this  be  astronomy,  then 
let  astrology  be  hailed  as  true  gospel. 

Let  us  now  inquire  what  is  the  extent  of  the  sun  ?s  at- 
traction at  the  distance  of  Neptune,  in  order  to  ascertain 
the  degree  of  "hydrostatic  pressure"  brought  to  bear  on 
the  material  of  Neptune's  ethereal  ring.  Not  to  weary 
the  reader  with  too  much  detail,  let  me  give  a  few  cal- 


THE  NEBULAR  HYPOTHESIS  183 

culated  results.  The  attraction  of  the  sun  on  a  given 
particle  as  distant  from  him  as  Neptune  is  about  one 
fourteen-hundred-thousandth  as  great  as  that  of  our 
earth  on  a  like  particle  at  her  surface.  It  is  only  about 
one-fourth  as  great  as  that  of  the  moon  upon  the  ring  on 
your  finger,  and  is  proportionally  about  equivalent  to 
that  of  the  attraction  of  your  own  body  upon  the  clock 
resting  on  the  mantel  a  few  feet  from  you. 

Now,  gravitational  attraction  is  one  thing,  but  tan- 
gential torsion  by  it  is  altogether  another.  It  is  quite 
admissible  to  conceive  of  the  particles  of  which  we  are 
speaking  as  being  held  back  by  their  gravitational  at- 
traction from  escaping  into  outer  space ;  but  it  demands 
the  maximum  of  credulity,  scientific  or  otherwise,  to 
believe  that  the  friction  between  particles  so  sparse  and 
minute  as  here  demonstrated,  and  cohering  only  by  grace 
of  a  vivid  fancy,  could  ever,  under  any  circumstances, 
sustain  a  general  torsional  motion.  To  refer  again  to  our 
illustration,  this  friction  is  relatively  the  same  as  the  act 
of  turning  around  on  your  heels  (while  still  preserving 
the  intervening  distance)  would  have  on  the  clock,  not  to 
draw  it  toward  you,  remember,  but  to  rub  it  to  one  side — 
no,  even  less,  because  the  air  intervening  between  the 
clock  and  you  is  many  thousands  of  times  denser  than  the 
postulated  nebula,  and  a  proportionately  stronger  fric- 
tional  medium. 

Again,  Laplace  made  no  attempt  to  explain  how  his 
unique  nebula  came  into  existence — he  merely  postulated 
it.  According  to  modern  molecular  theories,  be  they  true 
or  false,  the  molecules  are  perpetually  seeking  freedom 
and  to  scatter  themselves  as  thinly  as  possible  through 
the  wide  reaches  of  space.  Yet  here  we  have  our  doctri- 
naires soberly  telling  us,  that  not  only  did  the  Laplacian 
molecules,  without  any  particular  reason,  congregate  into 
a  vast  heap,  but  that  they  cohered  to  each  other  with  a 
tenacity  many  thousands  of  times  more  firm  and  rigid 
than  the  staunchest  steel!  Moreover,  after  the  rings 
severally  parted,  why  did  they  not  continue  in  the 
*  '  solid "  state,  seeing  that  they  were  then  relieved  from 
torsional  strains,  instead  of  immediately  dissolving,  and 


184  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

later  reuniting,  as  Laplace  described ;  and,  once  dissolved, 
why  and  how  did  the  minor  nebulous  masses  manage  to 
reacquire  the  " solid"  attributes  in  preparation  for  the 
casting  off  of  the  secondary  rings!  Yet  not  for  plain, 
practical,  common-sense  reasons  like  these  have  scientists 
thrown  off  the  Laplacian  incubus,  but  for  such  relative 
trivialities  as  the  behavior  of  little  Phobos ;  that  cosmic 
gnat  upon  which  science  foundered  after  banqueting  upon 
this  caravan  of  French-served  camelopards ! 

In  short,  the  Nebular  Hypothesis  of  Laplace  removed 
no  difficulties  whatsoever,  but  only  set  up  futile  others. 
In  its  initial  statement  he  frankly  assumed,  as  much  as 
did  Newton  himself,  a  physically  uncaused  motion  for  his 
matter ;  second,  he  assumed  its  incandescence,  despite  its 
envelopment  by  the  unspeakable  cold  of  space ;  third,  he 
postulated  an  unnatural  cloud-form ;  fourth,  he  made  no 
attempt  to  explain  how  the  nebula  originated ;  fifth,  he 
took  no  account  whatever  of  the  fatally  disturbing  factor 
of  the  sun's  motion  through  space;  and,  sixth,  granting 
him  all  his  egregious  postulates,  the  machine  he  invented 
was  geared  too  high  to  keep  going,  even  had  it  ever  got 
started.  To  speak  frankly,  the  Hypothesis  bore  upon  its 
face  such  crass  imbecilities  as  should  have  condemned  it 
instanter.  Even  had  it  provisionally  solved  all  the  de- 
tails it  was  intended  to  do,  its  palpable  and  inherent  de- 
fects should  have  discredited  it  nevertheless,  and  such 
apparent  responsiveness  been  laid  to  the  credit  of  mere 
coincidence.  As  it  has  turned  out,  science  has  frittered 
away  a  century  in  laboriously  putting  this  grotesque 
wraith  through  a  series  of  imaginary  gymnastics,  only  to 
have  it  perversely  turn  and  twist  the  wrong  way  like  a 
double- jointed  harlequin.  In  its  application  to  details  the 
Hypothesis  has  been  found  consistently  disappointing. 

From  Laplace  down  to  Mayer  and  Joule,  scientists 
peacefully  believed  in  the  possibility  of  this  nebula  being 
superheated;  but  no  sooner  did  the  Mechanical  Theory  of 
Heat  appear  than  they  confessed  their  previously  con- 
cealed misgivings  and  welcomed  the  newcomer  with  open 
arms.  With  a  great  sigh  of  relief  they  improvidently 
cooled  with  its  breeze  the  nebula 's  incandescence  down  to 


THE  NEBULAR  HYPOTHESIS  185 

the  zero  of  space,  and  began  to  build  with  the  chilled 
embers  the  burning  sun  and  molten  worlds.  New 
phrases,  such  as  "kinetic  energy ",  "energy  of  position," 
etc.,  sprang  up,  which,  interpreted,  mean,  that  by  the  mere 
coming  together  of  the  particles  of  the  nebula  under  the 
constraining  influence  of  gravity,  heat  was  produced  by 
their  mechanical  impacts  sufficient  to  melt  the  substance 
of  the  forming  planets,  and  to  endow  the  sun  with  a  sup- 
ply of  caloric  capable  of  lasting  that  prodigal  milliards 
of  years.  Thus  science  rested  in  smug  content  until 
Helmholtz,  the  great  physicist,  fortified  the  theory  with 
his  idea  of  a  slowly  contracting  sun,  so  that  certain 
sleepers  who  had  given  some  signs  of  waking  were  lulled 
into  still  deeper  slumber. 

Of  late,  however,  it  has  begun  to  dawn  upon  scien- 
tists that  their  theories  involve  the  ultimate  destruction 
of  the  universe  by  the  dissipation  of  all  heat,  when  the 
last  impact  shall  have  sounded,  and  all  the  worlds  shall 
finally  have  been  gathered  into  a  single  inert  mass.  In 
the  succeeding  chapters  I  shall  endeavor  to  disprove  this 
dismal  forecast. 

In  order  to  convey  to  the  reader,  in  as  concrete  and 
graphic  form  as  possible,  the  current  scientific  notion  of 
how  the  earth's  internal  heat  came  about,  as  well  as  the 
heat  of  the  sun  and  the  major  planets,  let  us  imagine  the 
substance  of  the  sun  divided  into  flakes,  say  a  hundred  to 
each  cubic-inch  of  matter.  It  is  a  pet  idea  of  modern 
science  that  the  farther  apart  the  particles  of  matter  are, 
the  greater  their  "energy  of  position" ;  so  let  us  meet  her 
views,  as  nearly  as  w^e  know  how,  by  picturing  the  nebular 
field  divided  into  cubical  chambers  100  feet  each  way,  and 
allot  to  each  chamber  one  such  flake — its  full  share. 
Now,  although  Laplace  assumed  these  flakes  (of  course 
he  did  not  use  this  particular  illustration)  to  be  incan- 
descent, modern  science  magnanimously  admits  they 
could  not  have  been  so,  exposed  as  they  were  to  the  ab- 
solute zero  of  space.  But,  says  science  instead,  these 
flakes  immediately  began  to  attract  each  othei  and  to 
cause  their  mutual  collision  with  such  force  as  not  only  to 
keep  themselves  and  their  neighbors  warm,  but  to  store 


186  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

up  so  much  excess  heat  that  after  several  hundred  mil- 
lions of  years  the  four  major  planets  are  still  in  a  molten 
state,  and  the  earth's  interior  so  hot  as  to  melt  granite 
and  every  instant  to  threaten  her  cataclysmic  disruption ! 
Assuming  that  the  earth  was  actually  formed  in  this  man- 
ner, that  the  process  took  the  moderate  period  of  five 
million  years  (which  is  much  less  than  scientists  ordi- 
narily allot),  and  that  the  accretions  were  gradual  and 
uniform,  figures  will  show  that  the  average  daily  sprinkle 
in  the  earth  ?s  case  could  not  have  exceeded  one-fourth  of 
an  inch!  When,  in  addition,  we  take  into  account  that 
the  flakes  and  the  planet  itself  were  continually  exposed 
to  a  far  colder  than  arctic  temperature,  and  that  the  sun 
had  his  own  future  to  look  after  the  while,  one  begins  to 
feel,  does  he  not,  that  the  effects  of  this  cosmic  snow- 
storm have  been  somewhat  Munchausenized  ? 

But  here  I  may  be  accused  of  unfairness  in  choosing 
the  simile  of  a  snow-storm,  as  no  doubt  the  substance 
of  the  nebula  was  more  compact  than  that,  say  in  the  form 
of  meteors.  To  this  I  answer,  first,  that  Laplace  speci- 
fied gaseous  matter,  which  is  still  lighter,  and  second, 
that,  even  so,  the  larger  the  particles  the  fewer  the  im- 
pacts and  the  farther  between,  hence  the  arithmetical  ag- 
gregate would  be  just  the  same ;  but,  fortunately,  there  is 
a  second  answer,  which  may  fairly  be  held'  to  be  experi- 
mental in  character ;  and  in  weighing  it  let  it  be  remem- 
bered that  the  earth  is  now  at  its  maximum  of  attractive 
power.  I  quote  verbatim  from  Professor  Percival  Low- 
ell's book,  The  Evolution  of  Worlds  (p.  41).  He  says: 

Most  meteorites  are  stones,  but  one  or  two  per  cent  are 
nearly  pure  iron  mixed  with  nickel.  When  picked  up  they  are 
usually  covered  with  a  glossy  thin  black  crust.  This  overcoat 
they  have  put  on  in  coming  through  our  air.  Air-begotten,  too, 
are  the  holes  with  which  many  of  them  are  pitted.  For,  entering 
our  atmosphere  with  their  speed  in  space  is  equivalent  to  im- 
mersing them  suddenly  in  a  blowpipe  flame  of  several  thousand 
degrees  Fahrenheit.  Thus  their  surface  is  burnt  and  fused  to  a 
cinder.  Yet  in  spite  of  being  warm  to  the  touch  their  hearts  are 
still  cosmically  cold.  The  Dhurmsala  meteorite  falling  into  moist 
earth  was  found  an  hour  afterwards  coated  with  frost.  Agassiz 
likened  it  to  the  Chinese  culinary  chef  d'oeuvre,  "fried  ice".  It 


THE  NEBULAR  HYPOTHESIS  187 

is  the  cold  of  space  200°  or  more  Centigrade  below  zero,  that  they 
bear  within,  proof  of  their  cosmic  habitat. 

I  ask,  How  many  such  meteoritic  impacts  as  this  of 
Dhurmsala  at  200°  below  zero  would  be  required  to  make 
up  a  sun  as  hot  as  ours  ?  or  how  many  million  years 
would  be  required  for  them  to  "cool"  up  to  the  molten 
condition  of  the  major  planets? 

Here  is  another  piece  of  testimony  from  the  recent 
work  of  Professor  T.  C.  Chamberlin,  of  the  University  of 
Chicago,  The  Origin  of  the  Earth,  (p.  163) : 

Meteorites,  even  after  they  have  plunged  through  the  whole 
atmosphere  and  into  the  earth,  are  said  sometimes  to  retain  a 
very  low  temperature  within.  They  are  reported  even  to  freeze 
the  earth  in  which  they  imbed  themselves.  At  any  rate,  the  low 
temperatures  brought  in  from  space  must  be  set  over  against 
the  heat  of  atmospheric  friction  in  the  ledger  of  temperature  ef- 
fects. Very  significant,  in  this  respect,  is  the  almost  incredible 
existence  of  a  small  class  of  meteorites  largely  formed  of  volatile 
and  combustible  hydrcarbons.  These  have  reached  the  earth 
without  either  complete  vaporization  or  combustion. 

The  shortcomings  of  the  collisional  theory  became 
early  apparent,  so  that,  in  the  year  1854,  Helmholtz  was 
led  to  propose  a  new  explanation  of  the  solar  heat.  Dis- 
cussing this  theory  Doctor  Abbot  says  (The  Sun,  p.  277) : 

Helmholtz  pointed  out  that  the  shrinking  together  of  the  sun 
converts  potential  energy  of  position  finally  into  heat.  Several 
authors  have  made  computations  of  the  quantity  of  energy  which 
would  be  available  from  this  source.  Their  results  have  generally 
been  based  on  the  assumption  that  the  sun  was  originally  a  nebula 
filling  a  sphere  whose  diameter  was  the  orbit  of  Neptune.  It  ap- 
pears that  the  condensation  of  such  a  nebula  having  the  mass  of 
the  sun  would  have  furnished  thus  far  about  25,000,000  times  as 
much  energy  as  the  sun  now  loses  each  year. 

According  to  Helmholtz's  view,  a  contraction  of  about  250 
feet  per  year  in  the  sun's  diameter  would  suffice  to  sustain  the 
present  solar  radiation.  At  this  rate  it  would  require  about 
10,000  years  to  reduce  the  apparent  diameter  of  the  sun  by  one 
second  of  arc,  so  that,  so  far  as  telescopic  observation  is  con- 
cerned, the  contraction  theory  is  tenable,  for  a  change  of  i/io 
second  in  the  solar  diameter  is  unrecognizable.  From  calcula- 
tions of  Newcomb  the  sun  will  require  to  have  shrunk  to  one- 
half  its  present  size  if  it  maintains  its  present  rate  or  radiation  for 
about  7,000,000  years  longer. 


188  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

On  the  same  subject  Doctor  Young  (Genl.  Astr.,  Art. 
359)  says: 

As  to  the  past  of  the  Solar  history  on  this  hypothesis  (Helm- 
holtz's),  we  can  be  a  little  more  definite.  It  is  only  necessary  to 
know  the  present  amount  of  radiation,  and  the  mass  of  the  sun, 
to  compute  how  long  the  solar  fire  can  have  been  maintained  at 
its  present  intensity  by  the  processes  of  condensation.  No  con- 
clusion of  geometry  is  more  certain  than  this, — that  the  contrac- 
tion of  the  sun  to  its  present  size,  from  a  diameter  even  many 
times  greater  than  Neptune's  orbit,  would  have  furnished  about 
18,000,000  times  as  much  heat  as  the  sun  now  supplies  in  a  year, 
and  therefore  that  the  sun  cannot  have  been  emitting  heat  at  the 
present  rate  for  more  than  18,000,000  years,  if  its  heat  has  really 
been  generated  in  this  manner. 

But  this  conclusion  rests  upon  the  assumption  that  the  sun 
has  derived  its  heat  solely  in  this  way,  and  the  recent  discoveries 
with  respect  to  radium  and  radio-activity  strongly  suggest  other 
causes  which  may  have  added  large  contributions,  and  may  still 
be  operative  in  maintaining  the  solar  radiation. 

Appropos  of  the  same  topic,  we  may  add  this  from 
Doctor  Newcomb  (Art.  Sun,  Americana) : 

If  the  sun  were  merely  losing  energy  like  an  ordinary  hot 
body  cooling  off,  a  very  simple  calculation  will  show  that  it  would 
be  so  cooled  off  in  the  course  of  3,000  or  4,000  years  as  no  longer 
to  radiate  much  heat.  It  is  clear  that  such  has  not  been  the  case. 
Yet  the  most  careful  study  shows  no  possibility  that  it  can  be  re- 
ceiving energy  from  any  outside  source.  Moreover,  the  geolo- 
gists assure  us  that  the  stratification  of  the  rocks,  as  well  as  many 
other  phenomena  associated  with  them,  proves  that  the  sun  has 
been  radiating  heat  to  the  earth  at  not  much  less  than  its  present 
rate  for  hundreds  of  millions  of  years. 

How  fertile  in  expedients,  these  astronomers,  and 
how  well  they  love  to  eat  their  cake  and  have  it  too! 
Consider,  if  you  please,  these  facts :  Away  back  in  1853, 
when  Helmholtz  put  forth  this  explanation,  the  Laplacian 
hypothesis  was  in  its  heyday,  and  not  a  voice  in  the  land 
of  science  was  there  heard  against  it.  At  that  time  it  was 
regarded  as  i '  one  of  the  most  well-attested  facts  of  hu- 
man knowledge ' '.  Now,  if  there  was  anything  clear  about 
that  conception,  it  was,  that  absolutely  the  whole  of  the 
matter  that  composed  the  Neptunian  annulus  went  into 
that  planet  and  his  satellites ;  so  in  the  case  of  the  Urani- 


THE  NEBULAE  HYPOTHESIS  189 

an  animlus,  and  so  in  turn  with  all  the  planetary  annuli 
down  to  and  including  Mercury's.  Yet  in  all  the  esti- 
mates I  have  come  across  in  my  reading,  I  have  failed  to 
find  a  single  one  that  does  not  construe  the  Helmholtzian 
sun  as  having  contracted  from  the  very  periphery  of  the 
original  nebula.  What  is  the  meaning  of  such  crass  mis- 
representation ?  Is  it  due  to  innocent  oversight,  or  to 
stupidity,  or  to  intentional  duplicity!  Be  the  reason 
what  it  may,  the  truth  remains  that  the  sun  cannot  be 
consistently  predicated  as  having  collapsed  upon  itself 
from  a  greater  distance  than  from  the  line  of  Mercury's 
orbit.  Now,  Mercury  is  only  1-80  as  far  from  the  sun's 
center  as  Neptune,  and  if  we  take  the  square  root  of  80 
(to  allow  for  gravitational  variation)  and  divide  Young's 
estimate  by  that  quantity,  the  life  of  the  sun  becomes 
theoretically  reduced  to  a  paltry  2,000,000  years ! 

The  situation  is  in  no  way  improved  by  postulating  a 
meteoric  in  lieu  of  a  gaseous  nebula,  should  such  a  sub- 
stitution be  attempted.  In  the  contemplation  of  science 
the  original  nebula,  however  constituted,  possessed  a  con- 
certed movement  of  rotation  about  an  axis,  and  there  is 
no  logical  warrant  for  asserting  that  part  of  it  took  on 
orbital  motion  while  the  rest  was  free  to  fall.  Even  con- 
ceding that  this  last  may  have  been  the  case,  that  part 
which  was  free  to  fall  would  inevitably  have  traversed 
the  distance  from  Neptune  to  the  sun  within  a  few  years 
at  most,  and  its  collisional  effects  been  ages  ago  dis- 
sipated. Indeed,  it  was  .precisely  to  escape  this  galloping 
culmination  that  caused  astronomers  to  look  with  so  much 
more  favor  on  the  gaseous  hypothesis.  In  all  cosmologi- 
cal  speculations,  duration  is  of  the  essence,  and  particu- 
larly is  this  the  case  here.  So  far,  then,  as  the  Helm- 
holtzian explanation  of  the  solar  heat  is  concerned,  the 
only  feasible  hypothesis  is  that  the  primordial  nebula 
was  strictly  gaseous  and  that  the  sun  contracted  to  his 
present  volume  from  a  maximum  radius  no  greater  than 
thirty  million  miles,  equivalent  to  a  radiating  longevity 
of  less  than  3,000,000  years,  liberally  estimated. 

So  much  for  the  quantitative  deficiency  of  the  con- 
traction theory,  now  as  to  its  qualitative  merits.  Al- 


190  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

though  all  astronomers,  it  appears,  accept  the  theory, 
there  is  a  division  of  opinion  among  them  as  to  whether 
the  sun  is  getting  hotter,  as  time  goes  on,  or  colder.  Such 
an  elementary  disagreement  as  this  certainly  does  not  in- 
spire confidence,  especially  when  neither  view  accords 
with  the  phenomena  demanding  elucidation.  The  sort  of 
sun  geology  prescribes  is  one  which,  though  having  evi- 
dently suffered  many  vicissitudes,  has  nevertheless  man- 
aged to  preserve  a  rather  uniform  average  of  tempera- 
ture throughout  geological  time.  That  is  to  say,  if  we 
conceive  geological  history  to  be  divided  into  periods  of 
equal  duration,  ancient,  medieval  and  modern,  the  mean 
temperature  of  the  sun  during  each  of  these  was  virtually 
the  same  as  it  was  in  the  others.  A  secularly  cooling  or 
warming  sun,  such  as  Helmholtz's  hypothesis  contem- 
plates, even  were  it  quantitatively  sufficient,  is  therefore 
qualitatively  unacceptable.  Geologists,  moreover,  in- 
form us  that  genial  and  frigid  ages  have  alternated  with 
fair  regularity  in  each  of  these  enormous  periods — 
another  essential  qualification  on  which  the  Helmholtzian 
lamp  casts  no  light. 

Until  about  the  year  1880  it  was  supposed  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course  that  because  the  sun  is,  in  theory,  conceived 
to  be  shrinking  on  account  of  his  cooling,  his  temperature 
must  be  consequently  falling.  It  was  reserved  for  J. 
Homer  Lane,  however,  to  propound  the  weird  paradox 
that  the  more  that  luminary  cools  the  Jiotter  he  gets  I  I 
quote  Sir  Kobert  Ball's  exposition  of  the  idea  (Story  of 
the  Heavens,  p.  522) : 

And  now  for  the  remarkable  consequence,  which  seems  to 
have  a  very  important  bearing  on  astronomy.  As  the  globe  con- 
tracts, a  part  of  its  energy  of  separation  is  changed  into  heat; 
that  heat  is  partly  radiated  away,  but  not  so  rapidly  as  it  is  pro- 
duced by  contraction.  The  consequence  is,  that  although  the 
globe  is  really  losing  heat  and  really  contracting  yet  that  its  tem- 
perature is  actually  rising.  A  simple  case  will  suffice  to  demon- 
strate this  result,  paradoxical  as  it  may  at  first  seem.  Let  us  sup- 
pose that  by  contraction  of  the  sphere  it  had  diminished  to  one- 
half  its  diameter;  and  let  us  fix  our  attention  on  a  cubic  inch  of 
the  gaseous  matter  in  any  part  of  the  mass.  After  the  contraction 
has  taken  place  each  edge  of  the  cube  would  be  reduced  to  half 


THE  NEBULAE  HYPOTHESIS  191 

an  inch  and  the  volume  would  therefore  be  reduced  to  one- 
eighth  part  of  its  original  amount.  The  law  of  gases  tells  us  that 
if  the  temperature  be  unaltered  the  pressure  varies  inversely  as 
the  volume,  and  consequently  the  internal  pressure  in  the  cube 
would  in  that  case  be  increased  eightfold.  As,  however,  in  the 
case  before  us,  the  distance  between  every  two  particles  is  reduced 
to  one-half,  it  will  follow  that  the  gravitation  between  every  two 
particles  is  increased  fourfold,  and  as  the  area  is  also  reduced  to 
one- fourth,  it  will  follow  that  the  pressure  inside  the  reduced  cube 
is  increased  sixteenf old ;  but  we  have  already  seen  that  with  a 
constant  temperature  it  only  increases  eightfold  and  hence  the 
temperature  cannot  be  constant,  but  must  rise  with  the  contrac- 
tion. 

What  sophistries  are  perpetrated  in  the  name  of 
Science !  Here  we  are  told,  in  so  many  words,  that  to 
warm  the  sun  the  way  to  do  is  to  cool  it,  and  in  order  to 
cool  it  we  must  heat  it.  Let  us  take  the  statement  exactly 
at  its  face  value  and  see  how  it  works  out  in  practice. 

The  world  of  science  is  pretty  well  agreed,  I  think, 
that  the  chemical  constitution  of  the  earth  and  the  sun  is 
much  the  same,  and  that  if  there  be  any  appreciable  dif- 
ference at  all,  the  sun  should  possess  a  higher  percentage 
of  the  heavier  materials  than  the  earth.  Nevertheless, 
the  sun's  density — that  is,  his  ratio  of  mass  to  volume- 
is  very  much  less,  being  only  1.4  that  of  water  as  against 
the  earth's  5.5,  and  a  simple  calculation  will  reveal  that  in 
order  for  the  former  to  become  as  compact  as  our  globe, 
he  shall  have  to  contract  his  diameter  by  312,000  miles. 

Now,  why  is  he  so  distended?  Surely  not  because  of 
his  axial  rotation;  for,  according  to  accepted  ideas,  were 
centrifugalization  the  cause,  he  should  possess  an  im- 
mense equatorial  protuberance,  whereas  he  exhibits  no 
oblateness  of  figure  at  all.  There  is  but  one  answer, 
namely,  it  is  because  of  his  exceedingly  high  temperature. 
But  if  Lane  is  correct  in  asserting  that  the  sun's  tempera- 
ture is  rising,  then  his  volume  must  be  expanding  from 
the  effects  of  the  increasing  heat,  and  there  follows  a 
double  paradox,  namely,  that  besides  growing  hotter  be- 
cause he  is  cooling,  he  is  expanding,  because  he  is  shrink- 
t 


On  the  other  hand,  if  the  Laneites  are  in  error,  it 
does  not  necessarily  follow  that  those  who  claim  the  sun 


192  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

is  falling  in  temperature  in  the  process  of  shrinking  are 
right.  The  sun  may,  in  fact,  not  be  shrinking  at  all,  but 
simply  holding  his  own !  For  let  us  hark  back  to  the  time 
when  the  luminary  may  be  supposed  to  have  possessed 
double  his  present  diameter,  and  to  have  had  a  tempera- 
ture, say,  twice  as  high  as  at  present.  Then,  according 
to  Stefan's  law,  his  radiation,  area  for  area,  must  have 
been  increased  in  the  ratio  of  the  fourth  poiver,  or  sixteen 
times,  and  his  surface  area  being  concurrently  multiplied 
by  four,  his  total  radiation  must,  according  to  figures, 
have  been  64  times  as  copious  then  as  it  is  to-day — ob- 
viously contrary  to  the  biological  facts.  Indeed,  the  sun 
dare  not  even  be  postulated  as  at  that  time  possessing  the 
same  temperature  as  now,  inasmuch  as  he  would  then 
have  been  radiating  four  times  as  much  heat,  on  account 
of  his  greater  area  ;which  would  have  meant  the  total 
destruction  of  all  terrestrial  life  then  extant. 

That  the  Helmholtzian  hypothesis  leaves  much  to  be 
desired  is  well  recognized  now,  though  scientists  were 
loth  to  admit  it  prior  to  the  discovery  of  radium  in  1898, 
when  a  new  hope  dawned.  Since  then,  zealous  efforts 
have  been  made  to  discover  traces  of  radium  in  the  solar 
spectrum,  but  so  far  without  success.  Professor  S.  A. 
Mitchell,  of  Yerkes  Observatory,  writing  in  1913  (Pop. 
Astr.,  No.  206),  reports  thus : 

From  theoretical  considerations  we  are  positively  convinced 
that  there  must  be  radium  in  the  sun.  But  to  prove  this  is  an- 
other problem.  With  the  spectra  we  already  have  we  can  prove 
nothing  more  than  accidental  coincidences.  One  of  the  problems 
for  the  solar  eclipse  of  August,  1914,  will  be  to  obtain  the  spec- 
trum of  the  chromosphere  on  a  large  scale  with  good  definition 
so  that  we  may  prove  what  we  think  we  know,  that  radium  is  in 
the  sun.  [The  eclipse  mentioned  developed  nothing  new.] 

If  I  interpret  this  quotation  correctly,  here  is  an  in- 
timation that  if  ever  astrophysicists  succeed  in  finding 
even  so  much  as  an  indubitable  trace  of  radium  existing 
in  the  sun,  the  whole  vexing  problem  of  the  source  of  the 
solar  heat  will  be  labeled  '  '  solved ? '  and  put  away  on  the 
shelf  for  keeps.  But  the  radium  hypothesis  can  never 
solve  this  problem  finally,  no  matter  if  the  sun  be  proved 


THE  NEBULAR  HYPOTHESIS  193 

to  contain  any  desired  percentage  of  radium,  or  radio- 
active materials.  It  might,  indeed,  dispose  of  the  quanti- 
tative question,  but  it  would  still  leave  hanging  all  the 
aforementioned  qualitative  difficulties  untouched.  Pro- 
fessor W.  B.  Wright,  of  the  Geological  Survey  of  Ireland, 
summing  up  a  luminous  chapter  on  the  theories  as  to  the 
causes  of  ice  ages  (The  Quaternary  Ice  Age,  p.  451), 
says: 

It  must  be  admitted  that,  among  the  theories  that  have  been 
brought  forward  to  account  for  the  phenomena  of  the  Ice  Age, 
there  is  not  a  single  one  which  meets  the  facts  of  the  case  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  inspire  confidence.  An  almost  fatal  objection  to 
Croll's  theory  is  the  date  it  assigns  to  the  end  of  the  Ice  Age, 
which  it  places  some  80,000  years  back.  If  as  Doctor  Geer  seems 
to  have  clearly  established  the  ice  margin  retreated  north  past 
Stockholm  only  about  9,000  years  ago,  this  practically  excludes 
any  possibility  of  a  connection  between  glaciation  and  changes 
in  the  eccentricity  of  the  earth's  orbit. 

And  listen  to  this  from  Dr.  Chamberlin,  the  world- 
renowned  geologist  (Origin  of  the  Earth,  p.  4) : 

But  this  theory  of  a  simple  decline  from  a  fiery  origin  to  a 
frigid  end,  from  a  thick  blanket  of  warm  air  to  a  thin  sheet  of 
cold  nitrogen,  consonant  with  the  current  cosmogony  as  it  was, 
logical  under  the  premises  postulated,  pessimistically  attractive  in 
its  gruesome  forecast,  already  in  possession  of  the  stage,  with  a 
good  prospect  of  holding  it — this  theory  of  a  stupendous  descen- 
sus  none  the  less  encountered  some  ugly  facts  as  inquiry  went 
on.  It  seemed  to  accord  well  enough  with  an  ice  age,  if  the  ice 
age  came  only  in  the  later  stages  of  the  earth's  history,  but  it  was 
ill  suited  to  explain  an  ice  age  in  the  earlier  geologic  eras.  Un- 
fortunately for  it,  there  began  to  appear  signs  of  ice  ages  far  back 
in  time,  and,  besides,  some  of  these  had  their  seats  much  nearer 
the  equator  and,  in  other  respects,  were  even  stranger  than  the 
latest  great  glaciation.  The  evidence  of  these  earlier  and  stranger 
glaciations  was  at  first  quite  naturally  received  with  incredulity, 
but  the  proof  grew  steadily  stronger  with  every  new  test,  and  the 
range  of  the  evidence  was  found  wider  and  clearer  as  exploration 
advanced.  While  all  this  should  have  weakened,  and  did  weaken, 
the  fundamental  concept  of  great  warmth  and  a  rich  atmosphere 
in  the  earlier  ages,  while  it  should  have  roused  skepticism  as  to 
the  verity  of  the  cosmogony  on  which  it  was  based,  and  perhaps 
did  so,  still  the  old  thermal  concept  and  the  old  cosmogony  con- 
tinued to  hamper  all  attempts  at  a  radical  revision  of  glacial 
theories. 


VIII 

EECENT  COSMOGONIES 

THE  CAPTURE  THEORY 

KEPLER'S  second  law,  namely,  that  the  radius  vec- 
tor of  the  several  planets  passes  over  equal  areas 
in  equal  times,  has  since  been  generalized  to  in- 
clude all  circulating  cosmic  bodies,  and  is  usually  re- 
ferred to  as  the  law  of  the  conservation  of  areas,  or  the 
law  of  the  conservation  of  moment  of  momentum.  It  ap- 
pears that  through  some  unaccountable  oversight  neither 
Laplace  or  those  who  came  after  him  ever  thought  of  ap- 
plying this  test  to  the  Nebular  Hypothesis  until  the  year 
1861,  when  the  French  physicist,  Jacques  Babinet  (1794- 
1872),  contributed  an  article  to  the  Comptes  Rendus,  in 
which  he  showed  that  the  Laplacian  conception  grossly 
violated  that  requirement,  and  that  when  the  sun  was 
supposedly  expanded  to  the  orbit  of  Neptune,  or  to  the  or- 
bits of  any  of  the  nearer  planets,  the  rotation  was  much 
too  slow  to  detach  any  of  them  by  centrifugal  force.  At 
that  time,  however,  such  was  the  prestige  of  Laplace  and 
his  cosmogony  that  Babinet 's  work  received  but  scant 
consideration,  and  even  Babinet  himself  kept  on  teaching 
the  same  old  fallacy,  notwithstanding,  until  his  dying 
day;  much  as  Sir  George  H.  Darwin  did  the  Newtonian 
tidal  theory,  which  he  himself  had  so  conclusively  dis- 
proved. Tradition,  it  seems,  can  blindfold  the  best. 


KECENT  COSMOGONIES  195 

About  a  half  century  later,  Doctor  T.  J.  J.  See,  the 
world-renowed  astronomer  and  Director  of  the  U.  S. 
Naval  Observatory  at  Mare  Island,  California,  in  the 
course  of  his  extensive  researches  came  upon  this  long- 
forgotten  article  of  Babinet  's  and  brought  it  again  to  the 
attention  of  the  scientific  world.  Even  then  it  would  have 
received  no  consideration,  it  is  safe  to  say,  either  from 
Doctor  See  himself  or  from  other  professional  scientists 
had  the  Hypothesis  not  in  the  meantime  become  dis- 
credited by  the  discovery  of  Phobos,  the  resolution  of  the 
Saturnian  rings  into  discrete  particles,  and  the  revelation 
of  the  existence  of  retrograde  motions  in  the  system. 

Adopting  Babinet 's  criterion  as  final  and  conclusive, 
Dr.  See  reasoned  that  since  the  planets  and  satellites 
could  not  possibly  have  been  flung  off  by  the  centrifugal 
rotation  of  the  solar  nebula,  there  was  but  one  other  way 
by  which  they  could  have  become  members  of  the  sun 's 
family,  and  that  was  by  capture  or,  in  other  words,  by 
falling  inward  toward  the  sun  from  a  great  distance.  If, 
he  argued,  the  sun  could  directly  form  out  of  the  cosmic 
dust,  why  not  the  planets,  satellites  and  comets,  severally 
and  independently?  It  requires  but  little  reflection  to  see 
that  to  give  plausibility  to  this  scheme,  if  for  no  other 
reason,  the  original  nebula  would  have  to  be  expanded  to 
vastly  greater  dimensions  than  that  of  Laplace,  and  ac- 
cordingly Dr.  See  himself  affirms,  that  ' '  it  was  between 
one  trillion  and  five  trillion  miles  in  radius. " 

It  was  not  only  obligatory  but  natural  for  Doctor  See 
to  seek  to  correlate,  as  part  of  his  cosmogonical  scheme, 
all  the  modern  developments  of  the  science.  One  of  these 
innovations  was,  of  course,  the  doctrine  of  light  and 
electrical  repulsion.  Laplace,  as  you  know,  had  taken  his 
nebula  for  granted ;  but  this,  Dr.  See  supplies  by  deriva- 
tion from  the  impalpable  dust  expelled  from  the  stars 
"gathering  into  clouds  in  the  opposite  parts  of  the 
heavens. ' '  His  nebula,  then,  differs  fundamentally  from 
that  of  Laplace  in  being  of  the  meteoroidal  and  not  the 
gaseous  type — a  very  material  distinction,  especially  in 
relation  to  the  applicability  of  the  Helmholtzian  explana- 
tion of  the  solar  heat. 


196  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

Another  distinction  between  Laplace's  and  See's 
points  of  view  is,  that  whereas  the  former  frankly  pos- 
tulated an  inherent  rotation  of  his  nebula,  the  latter 
thinks  to  help  matters  by  adopting  a  tone  of  doctrinal 
authority  and  finality,  without  deigning  to  offer  either 
argument  or  proof.  Let  me  here  quote  a  paragraph  or 
two  from  Dr.  See 's  article  on  Cosmogony  in  the  Ameri- 
cana (an  article,  by  the  way,  in  which  he  devotes  fourteen 
pages,  out  of  the  fifteen  allotted,  to  the  exploitation  of  his 
own  scheme,  in  entire  exclusion  of  such  rival  inventions 
as  Darwin's  Tidal-Evolution  theory,  Chamberlin's  Plane- 
tesimal  hypothesis,  Bickerton's  Third-Body  theory  and 
Svante  Arrhenius's  contributions  to  the  same  subject) : 

The  dust  carried  away  by  repulsive  forces  gathers  here  and 
there  into  clouds,  and  when  such  a  mass  settles  the  result  is  a 
cosmical  vortex,  which  whirls  and  slowly  develops  into  a  cosmical 
system.  Thus  the  stars  by  the  expulsion  of  fine  dust  form  neb- 
ulae, and  the  nebulae  in  turn  by  condensation  form  stars  and  sys- 
tems. The  clusters,  like  the  whirlpool  nebulae,  have  a  tendency 
to  spiral  movement.  The  attendant  bodies,  however,  are  never 
thrown  off,  but  captured  and  added  on  from  without.  The  heavy 
bodies  drift  toward  the  centers  of  attraction  already  developed, 
while  the  fine  dust  alone  is  diffused  and  carried  away  under 
repulsive  forces  to  form  other  nebulae  which  will  sometime  con- 
dense into  cosmical  systems. 

The  solar  system  was  formed  from  a  spiral  nebula,  revolving 
and  slowly  coiling  up  under  mechanical  conditions  which  were 
essentially  free  from  hydrostatic  pressure.  And  spiral  nebulae 
themselves  arise  from  the  meeting  or  mere  settling  of  unsymmet- 
rical  streams  of  cosmical  dust.  The  whole  system  of  particles  has 
a  sensible  moment  of  momentum  about  some  axis,  and  thus  it  be- 
gins to  whirl  about  a  central  point,  and  gives  rise  to  a  vortex. 
In  the  actual  universe  the  spiral  nebulae  are  to  be  counted  by  the 
million,  and  it  is  evident  that  they  all  arise  from  the  automatic 
winding  up  of  cosmical  dust,  under  the  attraction  of  their  mutual 
gravitation.  The  two  opposite  branches  of  the  spiral  nebulae,  so 
often  shown  on  photographs,  represent  the  original  streams  of 
cosmic  dust  which  are  coiling  up  and  forming  gigantic  spiral 
systems.  *  *  *  The  dust  carried  away  (from  the  stars)  by  repul- 
sive forces  gathers  here  and  there  into  clouds,  and  when  such  a 
mass  settles  the  result  is  a  cosmical  vortex,  which  whirls  and 
slowly  develops  into  a  cosmical  system.  Thus  the  stars  by  the  ex- 
pulsion of  fine  dust  form  nebulae,  and  the  nebulae  in  turn,  by  con- 


RECENT  COSMOGONIES  197 

densation,  form  stars  and  systems.    The  clusters,  like  the  whirl- 
pool nebulae,  have  a  tendency  to  spiral  movement. 

It  will  be  remembered  with  what  scrupulous  care 
Newton  strove  to  impress  upon  the  world  the  notion  that 
cosmic  space  is  absolutely  clear  of  any  ponderable 
medium.  Why?  Because  he  recognized,  even  if  his  suc- 
cessors affect  ignorance  of  it,  the  absolute  necessity, 
under  his  theory,  that  the  infinitely  accurate  adjustments 
between  gravity  on  the  one  hand  and  the  tangential  veloc- 
ity of  the  circulating  body  on  the  other,  ordained,  as  he 
postulated,  by  the  Creator,  dare  not  on  any  account  be 
altered,  even  in  the  slightest,  without  immediately  and 
irretrievably  destroying  (not  merely  imperiling)  the 
whole  system.  Since  his  day,  however,  a  few  phenomena, 
such  as  the  moon's  acceleration  and  the  acceleration  of 
Encke's  comet,  have  come  to  light  that  have  put  the 
mathematicians  sadly  at  a  loss  to  explain  gravitationally, 
save  on  one  perilous  assumption,  namely,  that  the  ether, 
or  some  other  cosmic  medium  mingled  with  it,  is  opposing 
the  free  passage  of  the  revolving  bodies. 

It  may  strike  the  lay  reader  as  paradoxical  to  be  told 
that  the  acceleration  of  an  orbitally  revolving  body  can  be 
explained  by  its  retardation,  but  the  acrobatic  astronomer 
of  to-day  is  equal  to  any  emergency.  His  explanation  is, 
that  a  body  so  retarded  in  its  orbit  is  thereby  forced  to 
fall  to  a  lower  level,  where,  he  tells  us,  under  the  mystical 
law  of  conservation  of  areas,  "it  is  natural  for  bodies  to 
move  and  revolve  faster  than  at  greater  distances. ' '  Not 
only,  says  he,  does  the  resisted  body  miraculously  re- 
cover the  velocity  lost,  but  it  actually  acquires  a  tangen- 
tial velocity  greater  even  than  at  first!  Such  is  "celes- 
tial ' '  mechanics ! 

In  addition  to  thus  cajoling  themselves  into  believing 
that  retardation  makes  for  speed,  just  as  Lane  persuaded 
them  that  the  sun,  by  cooling,  becomes  all  the  hotter,  our 
learned  doctrinaires,  proceeding  along  the  same  lines, 
have  succeeded  in  convincing  themselves  that  a  concomi- 
tant effect  of  this  process  is  to  cause  the  orbit  of  the  re- 
tarded body  to  become  more  and  more  rounded. 


198  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

This  myth  is  the  chief  text  and  stock  in  trade  of  our 
author,  who,  in  spite  of  his  affectation  of  originality,  is 
quite  prosaically  orthodox.  He  conceives  the  planets  and 
the  satellites,  whose  orbits  are  all  subcircular,  to  have 
nucleated  in  the  borders  of  the  nebula,  on  the  order  of  a 
trillion  miles  distant  from  the  central  sun,  and  thence  to 
have  descended  through  the  nebular  matter,  which  he  de- 
fines as  increasing  in  density  toward  the  middle.  At 
first,  he  says,  their  orbits  were  very  elongated,  but  as  they 
severally  came  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  sun,  they  en- 
countered stiffer  and  stiffer  resistance  from  the  nebular 
matter  enveloping  them,  causing  them  to  fall  to  still  lower 
levels,  and  consequently  to  hasten  their  velocity  and  take 
on  greater  rotundity  of  orbit.  To  quote  him  again : 

In  the  writer's  recent  researches  on  the  origin  of  the  solar 
system,  however,  it  has  been  shown  that  the  orbits  of  the  embryo 
planets  were  originally  hundreds  and  perhaps  thousands  of  times 
larger  than  they  are  now,  and  have  since  been  reduced  in  size 
and  rounded  up  by  the  secular  action  of  the  resisting  medium 
formerly  pervading  our  system.  As  the  planetary  orbits  were 
once  of  vast  extent,  and  have  since  contracted  their  dimensions, 
it  follows  that  the  embryo  planets  once  formed  a  connecting  linE 
with  the  present  system  of  comets.  In  the  course  of  immeasur- 
able ages,  the  planetary  system  contracted  its  dimension  enor- 
mously, and  at  the  same  time  eat  out  the  interior  portion  of  the 
primordial  solar  nebula ;  leaving  about  the  sun  and  planets  a  hol- 
low shell  of  nebulosity,  from  which,  under  the  effects  of  certain 
mutual  perturbations,  fragments  drop  down  to  visit  us  occa- 
sionally. These  are  the  comets,  and  this  is  why  they  come  from 
the  shell  or  envelope  at  a  great  distance  from  the  sun,  an  observed 
fact  which  has  puzzled  astronomers  and  mathematicians  for  cen- 
turies. 

In  explanation  of  the  axial  rotations  of  the  planets 
he  says: 

We  may  conceive  that  there  is  revolving  about  each  planet 
a  vortex  of  cosmical  dust,  some  of  which  falls  against  the  surface 
of  the  globe,  and  thereby  accelerates  its  axial  rotation.  As  the 
predominant  motion  of  the  vortex  is  forward,  the  planet's  rota- 
tion naturally  tends  to  become  direct  and  the  obliquity  tends  to 
disappear. 

Doctor  See's  own  appraisal  of  his  theory  can  be 
gathered  from  this,  his  concluding  paragraph : 


RECENT  COSMOGONIES  199 

The  most  remarkable  fact  about  the  capture  theory  of  cos- 
mical  evolution  is  the  harmony  which  it  introduces  among  the 
most  diverse  phenomena.  This  shows  that  it  rests  on  true  causes 
and  is  approximately  an  ultimate  truth,  which  may  indeed  be 
modified  by  future  discovery,  but  will  never  be  radically  changed. 
It  gives  us  a  simple  and  natural  conception  of  the  processes  by 
which  cosmical  systems  are  formed  and  unites  and  harmonizes 
all  the  known  phenomena  of  the  sidereal  universe,  so  that,  with 
the  exception  of  universal  gravitation,  it  is  believed  to  embody  the 
most  ultimate  law  of  the  starry  heavens. 

The  Capture  Theory  Criticised 

Before  proceeding  to  the  more  technical  criticism  of 
Doctor  See 's  theory  it  may  be  well  enough  to  get  a  clear 
idea  of  the  nature  of  this  so-called  nebula  with  which  he 
is  conjuring.  In  considering  Laplace 's  nebula,  we  found 
its  density  to  be  that  of  a  cubical  void  535  feet  each  way 
charged  with  the  equivalent  of  but  a  single  cubic  inch  of 
liquid  air.  Let  us  compare  that  density  with  the  density 
of  Doctor  See's  nebula.  Taking  the  minimum  radius 
mentioned  by  him,  namely,  a  trillion  miles,  and  dividing 
by  the  radius  of  Neptune's  orbit,  2,800,000,000,  gives  the 
number  350,  which  being  cubed  reveals  that  See 's  nebula 
is,  in  round  numbers,  43,000,000  times  as  rare  as  La- 
place's !  We  can  get  a  more  concrete  idea  of  its  extreme 
tenuity  by  multiplying  the  side  535  feet  by  350  and  erect- 
ing about  this  distance,  as  one  edge,  a  larger  cube,  35 
miles  each  way.  Such  a  cube  would  cover  with  its  base 
the  entire  area  of  the  State  of  Rhode  Island,  land  and 
water.  The  air  from  such  a  cube,  supposing  it  through- 
out of  the  density  at  sea  level,  if  reduced  to  liquid  form, 
would  fill  a  cubical  vat  four  miles  each  way  (64  cubic 
miles).  Discard  this  all,  retaining  but  a  single  cubic  inch 
of  it,  as  in  our  former  illustration,  and  restore  it  to  the 
great  void  of  42,875  cubic  miles  out  of  which  it  came,  and 
you  acquire  a  mathematically  accurate  idea  of  the  sort  of 
nebula  Doctor  See  is  dogmatizing  about.  However,  one 
distinction  it  is  important  to  note,  namely,  that  in  place 
of  using  the  substance  air,  which  is  a  gas,  we  should  sub- 
stitute, say,  a  heaping  teaspoonful  of  fine  flour.  Such, 
then,  is  the,  by  courtesy,  "density"  of  the  so-called  "re- 


200  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

sisting  medium"  which  Doctor  See  so  trustfully  adopts 
as  the  corner  stone  for  his  cosmogonical  edifice,  or  shall 
we  say,  as  the  barrier  on  which  he  relies  for  turning  back 
the  charging  planets  and  training  them  to  course  in 
rounded  paths. 

But  the  learned  gentleman  has  been  guilty  of  even  a 
worse  solecism;  he  has  incautiously  fallen  into  the  same 
blunder  for  which  he  blames  Laplace  and  precisely  the 
same  which  he  expressly  set  out  to  correct  and  redeem! 
When  he  says :  "  When  such  a  mass  settles,  the  result  is  a 
cosmical  vortex,  which  whirls  and  slowly  develops  into  a 
cosmical  system',,  what  else  can  he  have  in  mind  than 
that  the  planets  derive  their  orbital  revolutions  from  be- 
ing component  parts  of  the  nebula  and  gyrating  integrally 
with  it?  Such  being  the  case,  it  becomes  a  physical  and 
logical  impossibility  for  the  planet  to  "encounter  resist- 
ance" from  the  materials  of  the  nebula  itself,  quite  as 
much  so  as  that  one  cannot  overrun  his  own  shadow. 

In  order  to  encounter  such  resistance,  the  planet 
would  have  to  differentiate  its  velocity  from  that  of  the 
nebulous  matter  (that  is,  the  resisting  medium  itself),  a 
proceeding  which  would  involve  asserting,  first,  that  the 
planet  had  a  velocity  independent  of  the  nebula,  thus 
reopening  the  whole  question  as  to  the  origin  of  its 
motion ;  or,  second,  that  the  planet  was  traveling  beyond 
the  speed-limit  prescribed  by  the  law  of  areal  motion ;  or, 
third,  that  the  planet  was  accelerated  by  some  unknown 
additional  force,  or,  fourth,  that,  the  medium  was  lagging 
and  itself  transgressing  the  law  of  conservation  of  areas. 
In  fine,  Doctor  See  virtually  tells  us  four  contradictory 
things,  all  in  a  single  breath,  namely:  (1)  That  the  plan- 
ets are  (under  the  area!  law)  gyrating  pari  passu  with 
the  nebular  element;  (2)  that  they  are  outrunning  it  and 
so  incurring  resistance  from  it;  (3)  that,  by  reason  of 
this  resistance,  they  are  thereby  retarded  and  forced  to 
lag  in  the  rear,  and  (4)  that,  by  reason  of  being  so  re- 
tarded, they  drop  to  lower  levels  where  they  mystically 
acquire  fresh  acceleration!  If  all  these  things  are  indeed 
true,  and  true  all  at  the  same  time  in  Doctor  See's  con- 
sciousness, then  must  he  himself  be  the  paragon  he  speaks 


RECENT  COSMOGONIES  201 

of  when  he  says :  ' '  Not  only  must  the  astronomer  be  the 
wisest  and  intellectually  the  most  penetrating  of  men,  but 
in  order  to  be  a  discoverer  of  the  first  order,  he  must  be 
just  in  his  habits  of  mind  and  wholly  devoted  to  truth. " 

Proceeding  along  paths  of  the  same  order  of  "  pene- 
trative "  reasoning,  Doctor  See  "  solves "  nearly  every 
imaginable  enigma  that  has  baffled  astronomers  in  the 
past ;  but  I  shall  not  pursue  the  ungrateful  task  of  criticis- 
ing his  weird  speculations  further  than  to  cite  a  single 
sample  of  his  art  of  deductive  reasoning  from  his  chosen 
premises : 

The  extreme  roundness  of  the  orbit  of  Neptune  is  a  clear 
indication  that  this  planet  moved  for  a  long  time  against  a  vast 
amount  of  nebulous  resistance.  Therefore,  it  is  very  improbable 
that  our  planetary  system  terminates  with  Neptune.  In  all  prob- 
ability there  are  several  more  planets  beyond  the  present  boundary 
of  the  system,  some  of  which  may  yet  be  discovered. 

It  so  happens  that  Mercury,  the  innermost  planet, 
which  ostensibly  has  had  many  thousands  of  times  more 
schooling  at  the  hands  of  this  alleged  resisting  medium 
than  did  Neptune,  is  by  far  the  most  eccentric  of  any, 
whereas,  next  to  Venus,  Neptune's  orbit  is  the  most 
rounded.  In  fact,  there  is  no  element  of  our  planetary 
orbits  more  irreducible  to  a  regular  rule  than  just  this 
one  of  ellipticity,  as  you  may  see  from  a  list  of  the  planets 
arranged  in  the  order  of  this  peculiarity:  Mercury, 
Mars,  Saturn,  Jupiter,  Uranus,  Earth,  Neptune,  Venus. 
Furthermore,  we  cannot  decently  concede  that  it  is  in  any 
sense  consistent  with  See's  general  hypothesis  that  Nep- 
tune, in  particular,  could  ever  have  enjoyed  the  benefit  of 
the  resistance  of  any  matter  now  incorporated  in  the  sun 
and  interior  planets,  for  all  of  that  matter  must  inevi- 
tably have  preceded  and  beaten  him  in  the  race  of  cen- 
tralization. Making  allowance  for  this  factor,  it  can 
easily  be  figured  that  the  nebular  density  of  the  zone  ac- 
tually traversed  by  Neptune  was  a  billion  times  less  than 
the  vacuousness  already  computed,  yielding  a  result 
comparable  to  that  of  a  single  cubic  foot  of  atmospheric 
air  to  the  volume  of  our  earth !  And  it  is  from  this  noth- 
ingness revolving,  mirabile  dictu,  in  the  same  direction, 


202  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

and  at  equal  speed,  with  the  planet,  that  Doctor  See  pred- 
icates a  "vast  amount  of  nebulous  resistance ! ' '  And, 
finally,  because  he  sub-consciously  sees  the  preposterous- 
ness  of  his  pretensions,  he  strategically  diverts  attention 
to  an  already  general  divination  that  other  planets  may 
one  day  be  discovered  beyond  Neptune,  as  if  laying  in 
advance  the  foundation  for  a  future  claim  to  prophecy 
and  corroboration  should  the  expected  come  true. 

THE  TIDAL-EVOLUTION  THEORY 

It  was  in  the  year  1755  that  Kant  published  his  work 
on  The  History  of  Nature  and  Theory  of  the  Heavens,  in 
which  he  maintained  that,  because  of  tidal  friction,  the 
earth's  axial  rotation  is  slowing  up  and  our  day  conse- 
quently lengthening.  His  argument  was,  of  course, 
based  on  Newton's  theory  of  tidal  formation,  and,  grant- 
ing the  correctness  of  that,  Kant  was  undoubtedly  right. 
He  was  one  of  the  very  few  who  have  had  an  inkling  of 
the  truth  that  celestial  mechanics  is  essentially  the  same 
prosaic  thing  as  everyday  terrestrial  mechanics  and  not 
the  poetic-license  monstrosity  that  Newtonianism  and 
Laplacianism  have  pictured  it.  He  looked  upon  the  earth 
genuinely  as  a  physical  object  capable  of  being  stopped 
or  retarded  like  any  other,  given  the  natural  forces;  al- 
though it  must  be  confessed  he  seems  to  have  found  noth- 
ing amiss  in  the  silly  notion  that  the  earth  perennially 
centrifugalizes  her  equatorial  waters  without  the  con- 
sumption of  power.  Though  straining  on  the  gnat,  he 
experienced  no  difficulty  in  negotiating  the  camel. 

Remarkable  as  it  may  seem  to  the  uninitiated,  as- 
tronomers have  found  a  way  to  test  Kant's  conclusion. 
This  they  have  done  by  comparing  the  records  of  ancient 
eclipses  as  far  back  as  the  8th  century  B.  C.,  almost  three 
milleniums.  The  result,  however,  has  been  negative, 
demonstrating,  according  to  Young  (Genl.  Astr.,  p.  105) : 

At  present  it  can  only  be  said  that  the  change,  if  any  has  oc- 
curred since  astronomy  became  accurate,  has  been  too  small  to  be 
detected.  The  day  is  certainly  not  longer  or  shorter  by  i-ioo  of 
a  second  than  in  the  days  of  Ptolemy,  and  probably  has  not 
changed  by  i-iooo  of  a  second. 


RECENT  COSMOGONIES  203 

In  recent  years  Sir  George  H.  Darwin  (1845-1913), 
more  than  any  other  single  investigator  perhaps,  has 
made  a  special  and  practical  study  of  the  tides ;  and,  like 
the  rest  of  mankind,  he  fell  naturally  into  the  habit  of 
viewing  the  universe  through  the  spectacles  of  his 
specialty.  There  were  three  peculiarities  about  our  earth- 
moon  system  that  struck  him  as  possibly  susceptible  of 
correlation  under  the  tidal  principle,  and  to  the  pursuit 
of  this  object  he  devoted  many  years  of  his  studious  life. 
These  three  peculiarities,  according  to  his  interpretation, 
were  the  following : 

1.  The  moon  constantly  turns  the  same  side  toward 
us. 

2.  Her  surface  is  obviously  volcanic. 

3.  The   earth  is   the  only   planet  having   a  single 
satellite,  and  this  satellite  is  the  largest,  relatively  to  its 
primary,  in  the  whole  solar  system. 

Between  Darwin  pere  and  Darwin  fils  there  lay  an 
antipodal  distinction.  The  former  was  a  pioneer  in  the 
true  sense,  caring  little  for  established  opinions,  but 
everything  for  the  realities  of  Nature.  The  latter,  on  the 
contrary,  gave  the  lie  to  Nature  and  servilely  followed 
on  the  heels  of  Tradition.  What  chance,  think  you,  has 
the  cause  of  progress,  when  one  such  as  he,  having  ut- 
tered the  statement :  i '  The  equilibrium  theory  of  tides  is 
nearly  as  much  wrong  as  possible  in  respect  to  the  time  of 
high  water.  In  fact  in  man}7  places  it  is  nearly  low  water 
at  the  time  the  equilibrium  theory  predicts  high  water. 
It  would  seem  then  as  if  the  tidal  action  of  the  moon  was 
actually  to  repel  the  water  instead  of  attracting  it,  and  we 
are  driven  to  ask  whether  this  result  can  possibly  be  con- 
sistent with  the  theory  of  universal  gravitation ' ' — yet 
deliberately  flew  in  the  face  of  the  truth  and  rushed  on  in 
the  same  old  rut? 

So  Darwin,  following  perversely  in  the  footsteps  of 
the  mistaken  Newton  and  Kant,  pursued  the  following 
train  of  hyper-speculative  reasoning : 

Since,  according  to  Kant,  the  day  is  longer  (or  at 


204  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

least  theoretically  ought  to  be  longer)  than  it  was  a  mil- 
lenium  ago,  there  was  probably  a  time  millions  of  years 
ago  when  the  earth  rotated  on  her  axis  much  more  swiftly 
than  she  does  now.  Granting  this  supposition,  there  is 
no  reason  why  we  may  not  suppose,  further,  that  she  even 
rotated  in  from  three  to  four  hours ;  at  least  there  is  no 
one  in  a  position  to  disprove  it.  However,  this  supposi- 
tion is  orthodoxically  permissible ;  for,  according  to  La- 
place, the  earth-moon  system  was  originally  a  spheroidal 
nebula  rotating  on  its  axis,  and,  by  common  acceptation, 
it  rotated  faster  and  faster  in  the  course  of  its  shrinking. 
Suppose,  then,  that  when  the  nebular  earth  had  shrunk  to 
a  girth  not  much  larger  than  it  has  at  present,  it  had  al- 
ready formed  a  weak  crust  and,  incidentally,  was  rotating 
in  the  brief  period  mentioned.  In  that  case  it  is  possible 
that  the  earth  may  have  flung  off  the  moon  with  sufficient 
violence  to  detach  her  permanently  from  the  planet  and 
make  a  satellite  of  her.  It  is  not  necessary  to  stipulate 
just  how  far  away  the  moon  was  thus  hurled,  but  for  the 
sake  of  illustration  we  may  suppose  she  was  flung  to  a 
height  of  some  4,000  miles,  and  we  may  further  assume 
that  both  parent  and  offspring  were  in  the  molten,  or  a 
quasi-molten,  state.  Under  these  circumstances  the  two 
bodies  would  doubtless  raise  great  tides  upon  each  other's 
surfaces  and  these  protuberances  would,  by  their  eccen- 
tric attractions  upon  each  other,  retard  the  rotational  ve- 
locities of  their  respective  globes.  This  would  bring  in- 
to play  the  mysterious  law  of  conservation  of  moment  of 
momentum,  and  the  moon  would  consequently  go  out 
further  and  further  by  way  of  compensating  for  her 
slowly  expiring  axial  rotating  energy,  until,  finally,  that 
rotation  would  become  reduced  to  a  minimum  and  the 
satellite  would  turn  the  same  face  constantly  earthward — 
as  it  does  now. 

Careful  computations  have  demonstrated  that  on  ac- 
count of  the  relatively  small  mass  of  the  moon,  her  tem- 
perature under  the  impact  theory  could  nothave  exceeded, 
at  the  very  beginning,  more  than  0°  Farenheit.  This 
finding  is  plainly  incompatible  with  the  observed  volcanic 
rugosity  of  her  surface.  It  is  also  to  be  noted  that  where- 


KECENT  COSMOGONIES  205 

as,  in  the  order  of  size,  we  have  the  earth,  Mars,  and 
moon,  their  order  of  roughness  is,  moon,  the  earth,  Mars. 
By  deriving  the  moon  from  the  earth,  then,  we  may 
theoretically  endow  the  former  with  the  same  temper- 
ature as  our  80-times  more  massive  planet.  When,  now, 
we  take  into  consideration  the  fact  that  the  lunar  gravity 
is  only  about  1-6  of  the  terrestrial,  it  is  easy  to  see  why 
the  explosive  effects  on  the  satellite  have  been  so  much 
more  telling  than  upon  either  Mars  or  the  earth. 

Inasmuch  as  the  nebular  earth  did  not  give  birth  to 
the  moon  as  early  in  the  process  of  condensation  as  did 
the  other  planets  to  their  satellites,  but  reserved  its  en- 
ergies until  it  had  attained  a  very  compact  stage  and, 
under  the  law  of  moments,  a  commensurately  high  veloc- 
ity, it  was  only  to  be  expected  that  the  child  should  prove 
the  Titan  it  did. 


Criticism  of  the  Tidal-Evolution  Theory 

Any  theory  that  breeds  enigmas  faster  than  it  dispels 
them  is  ipso  facto  false  and  worthless.  Having  ex- 
plained, as  he  imagined,  the  moon's  present  posture  by  a 
series  of  assumptions  on  assumptions,  Darwin  should 
have  gone  further  and  proved  all  those  assumptions.  In 
this  long  series,  not  one  of  his  assumptions  is  universally 
conceded  by  the  astronomical  profession — the  Laplacian 
hypothesis  is  obsolescent,  if  not  actually  obsolete;  the 
lunar  volcanic  theory  is  contradicted  by  a  large  and  grow- 
ing faction  who  insist  that  the  lunar  asperities  are  due  to 
meteoric  impacts ;  the  Planetesimalists  assert  that  the  in- 
ternal heat  of  the  planets  is  of  later  genesis  than  the 
original  ingathering  of  the  nebulous  matter;  and  so  on. 
In  any  event,  it  is  quite  as  sensible  and  scientific  to  accept 
the  moon's  fixed  attitude  as  an  ultimate  fact  of  nature, 
as  to  swallow  a  dozen  other  even  greater  uncertainties 
and  incomprehensibilities  along  with  it  in  the  effort  to 
appear  wise.  But  let  me  show  you  the  physical  absurd- 
ity of  this  tidal-evolution  theory  by  a  simple  calculation 
which  anyone  can  follow  and  verify : 


206  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

The  mass  of  the  earth  is  estimated  to  be  about  6,000, 
000  quadrillions  of  tons,  hence  that  of  the  moon,  which  is 
about  1-81  as  large,  is,  in  round  numbers,  74,000  quad- 
rillions. The  question  is,  how  thick  would  have  to  be  a 
cable  of  steel,  of  the  tensile  strength  of  40  tons  to  the 
square  inch,  in  order  to  equal  the  gravitational  attraction 
between  the  earth  and  the  moon  when  the  latter  was  sup- 
posedly at  the  earth's  surface,  as  it  must  have  been  in 
order  that  it  may  have  been  flung  off  as  Darwin  describes. 
Dividing,  first,  by  40  gives  us  1,850  quadrillions  of 
square-inches  as  the  area  of  the  cross-section  of  the  cable. 
Now,  the  formula  for  the  area  of  a  circle  being  ?rr2,  per- 
forming the  operation  gives  us  the  thickness  of  the  cable, 
in  round  numbers,  as  24,000  miles !  That  is  to  say,  Dar- 
win and  all  who  agree  with  him  (which  is  to  say,  all  the 
scientific  world,  with  very  few  exceptions)  gravely  assert 
that  by  reason  of  her  slow  contraction  due  to  cooling  the 
earth  acquired  so  much  increased  axial  velocity  as  to  en- 
able her  to  sunder  a  steel  cable  more  than  thrice  her  own 
diameter!  Did  I  say  sunder®  That  is  the  wrong  word, 
for  the  bond  of  gravitation  may  be  strained,  indeed,  but 
not  broken.  When  the  moon  was  hurled,  as  alleged,  to 
the  distance  of  4,000  miles  from  the  earth  and  became  a 
satellite,  their  mutual  attraction  was  thereby  by  no  means 
destroyed,  but  only  reduced  to  1-4  of  what  it  was  before, 
equaling  still  the  strength  of  an  elastic  steel  cable  12,000 
miles  in  thickness,  or  1-J^  times  the  earth's  diameter. 
From  that  point  on  outward,  Darwin  assumes,  by  conven- 
tion, that  the  momentum  of  the  moon  possessed  at  the  in- 
stant of  severance  persists  undiminished  forever,  sus- 
taining her  in  her  orbit  automatically;  and  then  he  goes 
on  to  explain  how  the  gravitational  attraction  of  the 
ansae,  or  tidal  protuberances  of  the  moon,  lift  her  further 
and  further  away — by  her  boot  straps,  as  it  were. 

The  velocity  from  infinity,  or  parabolic  velocity,  is 
that  which  a  body  falling  from  infinity  would  acquire  on 
reaching  the  cosmic  body  under  consideration.  Thus,  a 
cannon-ball  falling  to  the  earth  from  infinity  would  ac- 
quire, according  to  mathematicians,  a  velocity  of  6.9  miles 
a  second.  Conversely,  in  order  that  any  object  expelled 


KECENT  COSMOGONIES  207 

forcibly  from  the  earth  shall  never  return  to  it  again,  it 
must  depart  with  this  same  velocity  of  6.9  miles  a  second. 
Now,  according  to  Darwin's  premises,  the  moon  must 
have  been  flung  off  with  just  that  speed,  since  it  appears 
she  is  never  to  return  to  the  earth. 

The  query  here  suggests  itself,  what  was  the  nature 
of  the  energy  that  accomplished  this  stupendous  cast? 
It  could  not  have  been  heat,  because  Darwin  lays  the 
cause  of  the  earth's  axial  acceleration  to  its  having  cooled 
and  shrunken.  Furthermore,  it  can  be  shown  that  as 
much  flinging  energy  wrould  have  been  required  as  there 
wrould  be  heat  generated  by  the  reverse  process  of  the 
fall  of  the  moon  from  infinity  upon  the  earth;  that  is  to 
say,  more  than  enough  to  vaporize  both  of  these  great 
bodies  completely,  Plainly,  then,  the  energy  employed 
was  not  physical,  but  magical  or  imaginary. 

That  Darwin  was  not,  however,  entirely  devoid  of 
the  saving  salt  of  common  sense,  in  spite  of  the  indica- 
tions, is  shown  by  his  concluding  sentence  (The  Tides,  p. 
284) :  "  There  is  nothing  to  tell  us  whether  this  theory 
affords  the  true  explanation  of  the  birth  of  the  moon,  and 
I  say  that  it  is  only  a  wild  speculation  incapable  of  veri- 
fication. ' '  I  leave  it  to  the  reader  to  make  his  own  com- 
ments. 

THE  THIRD-BODY  THEORY 

In  his  very  interesting  little  book,  "The  Birth  of 
Worlds  and  Systems",  published  in  February,  1911,  A. 
W.  Bickerton,  Professor  of  Physics  and  Chemistry  in 
Canterbury  College,  of  New  Zealand,  has  collected  to- 
gether a  series  of  papers,  dating  from  the  year  1878,  set- 
ting forth  a  unique  speculation,  to  which  he  has  given  the 
title  of  "Theory  of  the  Third  Body."  In  order  that  I 
may  not  fail  to  report  him  correctly,  I  shall  use  his  own 
words  quite  freely,  omitting  only  inessentials.  For- 
tunately his  first  chapter  is  itself  a  summary  of  his  views : 

A  pair  of  dead  suns,  that  is  to  say  two  dark  stars,  colliding, 
would  possess  energy  sufficient,  if  suddenly  converted  into  heat 
to  account  for  the  phenomena  of  temporary  stars.  All  suns  pos- 
sess proper  motion.  Hence  it  was  evident  that  the  orbits  of  two 


208  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

suns,  in  approaching  one  another,  would  be  similar  to  that  of  an 
ordinary  errant  comet.  There  would  be  mutual  deflection  and 
mutual  distortion,  and  it  would  be  extremely  improbable  that 
the  suns  should  meet  centre  to  centre.  Much  more  frequently 
there  would  be  partial  impact  or  grazing  collision;  therefore,  the 
problem  to  consider  was,  what  would  happen  were  a  pair  of 
dead  suns  to  graze?  *  *  *  The  portion  of  each  body  actually  in 
the  path  of  the  other  would  be  torn  from  the  main  portion,  and 
these  torn-off  portions  would  coalesce  into  a  new  or  third  body, 
explosively  hot  and  of  surpassing  brilliancy. 

The  two  diminished  suns  would  pass  on,  each  with  a  fiery 
scar  where  it  had  been  cut.  Each  would  be  set  rotating,  and  each 
would  be  like  a  policeman's  lantern  hung  by  a  string  and  set 
spinning.  Each  would  present  alternatively  its  bright  and  dark 
face  to  any  point  on  its  equatorial  plane.  *  *  * 

Returning  to  the  central  body,  which  the  two  retreating  torn 
suns  were  leaving  behind  between  them,  one  saw  that,  at  the  im- 
pact, the  different  elements  would  be  given  a  temperature  that 
would  be  proportional  to  their  atomic  weight.  Oxygen  would  be 
1 6  times  as  hot  as  hydrogen,  lead  207  times  as  hot  as  hydrogen, 
each  and  every  one  of  these  elements  moving  at  velocities  of 
hundreds  of  miles  a  second,  yet  all  would  be  tending  toward  an 
equality  of  temperature,  as,  for  example,  the  hot  lead  would  be 
robbed  of  its  high  temperature  by  the  cooler  hydrogen.  Then 
when  something  like  a  balance  or  equality  was  gained,  the  energy 
of  unit  mass  of  each  element  would  tend  to  be  inversely  as  its 
atomic  weight,  hydrogen  having  4  times  the  power  of  escape  of 
helium,  16  times  that  of  oxygen,  and  207  times  that  of  lead. 

Their  velocities  would  tend  to  follow  the  law  of  Graham,  and 
a  kind  of  atom-sorting  would  ensue,  to  which  the  term  "Mole- 
cular Selective  Escape"  was  applied.  This  atom-sorting  tells  us 
that  the  new-born  star  would  soon  consist  of  a  brilliant  nucleus 
of  heavy  elements,  surrounded  with  a  set  of  ensphering  shells  of 
different  gases ;  the  lightest,  hydrogen,  being  on  the  outside.  *  *  * 

The  dense  nucleus  would  be  rotating,  hence  the  outward 
rush  would  not  finish  with  the  particles  coming  to  rest ;  the  motion 
would  end  in  a  curve,  and  all  that  mass  of  heavy  elements  would 
form  a  revolving  meteoric  swarm,  which,  if  the  colliding  bodies 
were  small,  would  be  a  comet.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  were  very 
large,  the  swarm  might  develop  into  a  star  cluster,  which  in  turn 
might  become  a  sun  surrounded  with  countless  satellites,  a  nebu- 
lous star.  Soon  after  impact  the  swarms  might  become  entangled 
with  the  variable  stars,  and  might  produce  the  nebulosity  at  mini- 
mum, so  characteristic  of  these  bodies  *  *  *.  This  new  third 
body  would  exercise  a  retarding  influence  on  the  two  escaping 
torn  suns,  and  ought  often  to  wed  them  into  stars.  *  *  * 


EECENT  COSMOGONIES 209 

In  studying  the  depths  of  graze  of  colliding  suns,  it  was 
found  that  when  the  graze  was  greater  than  a  third  of  the  whole 
mass,  a  kind  of  whirling  coalescence  must  ensue.  Such  an  event 
was  thought  to  have  given  rise  to  our  own  Solar  System.  In  this 
view  the  planets  were  pre-existing  bodies  revolving  in  any  azi- 
muths about  one  or  both  of  the  original  colliding  suns.  These 
were  swung  into  a  plane  by  the  whirl  following  upon  the  impact. 
The  moons  were  pieces  of  cosmic  dust  captured  by  the  planets 
when  rarer  than  they  are  at  present  *  *  *. 

There  is  a  tendency  for  the  light  elements  to  be  expelled 
from  old  systems  by  the  high  speed  to  atoms.  These  tend  to 
congregate  in  positions  of  high  potential,  where  matter  is  sparse. 
Agencies  were  found  that  elevated  dissipating  energy,  and  others 
that  tended  to  disperse  matter,  until  a  complete  mechanism  dis- 
closed itself.  That  rendered  it  possible  that  we  exist  in  a  cyclic 
scheme  of  creation,  in  which  there  is  no  evidence  of  a  beginning 
or  promise  of  an  end,  but  a  cosmic  whole  infinite  and  immortal  *  *. 

Long  ago  [p.  21]  both  Ritter  and  myself,  by  different  modes 
of  treatment  and  different  modes  of  statement  of  results,  showed 
that  in  a  complete  collision  of  similar  gaseous  suns,  the  new  sun 
would  be  only  expanded  to  one- fourth  the  density ;  that  is  to  say, 
the  diameter  of  the  new  sun  would  be  the  sum  of  the  two  dia- 
meters of  the  two  similar  colliding  gaseous  suns.  I  also  worked 
out  the  interesting  result  that  all  the  colliding  energy  was  exactly 
turned  into  potential  energy  of  expansion,  in  this  way  leaving  the 
new  sun  in  possession  of  the  same  temperature  as  the  old  pair. 
Moreover,  the  condition  was  one  of  gaseous  equilibrium  and 
hence  stable  *  *  *. 

Then  [p.  96]  what  possibly  is  the  right  explanation  (of  the 
solar  system)  occurred  to  me,  a  suggestion  that  improves  as  more 
and  more  study  is  bestowed  upon  it.  It  is  a  kind  of  combination 
theory.  The  planets  were  captured  by  the  revolving  nebula,  but 
they  were  independent  bodies  revolving  in  any  azimuth,  about 
one  or  both  of  the  original  bodies  whose  impact  produced  the 
revolving  solar  nebula.  Perhaps  the  four  inner  dense  planets 
belonged  to  one  original  body,  and  the  four  outer  rarer  ones  be- 
longed to  the  other.  Further  study  showed  that  all  might  have 
belonged  to  only  one  of  the  original  bodies.  We  have  had  much 
talk  over  it,  and  opinions  are  still  divided  *  *  *. 

This,  then,  is  the  state  of  our  idea  of  the  origin  of  the  Solar 
System,  as  far  as  we  have  got  at  present.  We  have  not  appre- 
ciably altered  the  idea  for  thirty  years  *  *  *. 


210  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

Criticism  of  the  Theory  of  the  Third  Body 

Given  a  universal  affinity  of  cosmic  bodies  for  each 
other,  their  collision  should  seemingly  be  the  rule  rather 
than  the  exception.  Indeed,  to  account  for  their  remain- 
ing aloof  from  each  other  instead  of  long  ago  accumu- 
lating in  a  single  heap  at  the  center  of  things  has  been 
one  of  the  chief  concerns  of  Newton  and  Newtonians. 
One  way  which  astronomers  have  adopted  to  escape  this 
logical  difficulty  is  by  the  invention  of  the  idea  of  so-called 
"proper  motions "  for  stars,  on  the  implied  assumption 
that  in  the  capriciousness,  randomness  and  diversity  of 
such  motions  lies  the  desired  life-saving  principle.  In 
other  words,  they  seek  in  lawlessness  the  foil  to  law.  To 
clinch  the  matter,  they  postulate  such  arbitrary  "inher- 
ent" motions  as  being  likewise  irreducible  and  self -per- 
petuating. A  second  way  of  escape  which  they  have 
adopted  is  by  assuming  that  bodies  thus  mutually  at- 
tracted cannot  fall  to  each  other,  but  must  arbitrarily  ro- 
tate around  their  common  center  of  gravity. 

Now,  we  cannot  allow  Professor  Biekerton  to  blow 
hot  and  cold  at  once ;  he  must  in  duty  bound  stick  to  the 
precepts  he  ostensibly  professes,  or  frankly  disavow 
them.  That  he  believes  in  the  reality  of  proper  motions 
.as  arbitrary  entities  he  explicitly  states,  and  I  think  we 
have  no  reason  to  infer  aught  else  than  that  he  regards 
these  conventionally  as  both  inherent  and  random.  In 
other  words,  his  postulated  collisions  are  not  to  be  con- 
strued as  arising  from  the  mating  stars  seeking  each 
other  out  by  virtue  of  their  gravitational  affinity,  but 
purely  and  simply  by  blind  chance.  With  this  important 
consideration  ever  in  mind,  let  us  weigh  the  probabilities 
of  such  a  collision  coming  to  pass  in  our  immediate  zone 
of  the  heavens — of  which  alone  do  we  know  enough  to 
speak  with  reasonable  confidence. 

The  star  nearest  to  our  sun  is  Alpha  Centauri,  and  it 
is  26,000,000  million  miles  distant ;  the  next  nearest  is  al- 
most twice  as  far  away.  Now,  by  premiss,  both  Alpha 
and  the  sun,  in  the  absence  of  the  ascertained  facts,  might 
be  moving  haphazardly  in  any  direction  whatsoever,  to- 


KECENT  COSMOGONIES  211 

ward,  or  away,  or  parallel,  with  reference  to  each  other. 
We  will,  however,  prescribe  such  a  movement  on  the  part 
of  both  that  shall  make  it  possible  for  them  to  collide. 
Imagine,  then,  a  straight  line  joining  the  two,  and  exactly 
at  the  middle  thereof,  and  at  right  angles  therewith,  a 
circular  diaphragm  having  a  diameter  exactly  equal  to 
said  line  of  joinder.  We  will  now  stipulate,  to  begin  with, 
that  both  Alpha  and  the  sun  shall  possess  proper  motions 
which  will  cause  them  to  impinge  simultaneously  on  the 
diaphragm,  but  we  will  leave  to  chance  just  where  each 
shall  pierce  it. 

By  thus  conditioning  the  sun  to  strike  within  the  area 
of  the  diaphragm,  we  have  arbitrarily  restricted  him  to  a 
little  less  than  one-seventh  of  his  original  liberty  of 
movement,  and  so,  too,  with  the  star.  By  restricting 
both,  however,  at  the  same  time  we  enhance  the  chances 
of  collision,  not  by  the  sum,  but  by  the  product  of  these 
amounts  whence  the  probability  against  our  premiss  is, 
say,  fifty  to  one. 

We  will  now  suppose  both  the  star  and  sun  to  possess 
diameters  of  a  million  miles  (to  make  computation  easy), 
whence  it  would  follow  that  (excluding  the  factor  of 
gravitation)  they  would  be  able  to  pass  each  other  with- 
out touching  through  a  square  or  circular  opening  of 
4,000,000,000,000  square-miles.  Obviously,  the  chance  of 
either  sun  or  star  striking  a  particular  spot  on  our  dia- 
phragm would  be  in  the  like  ratio  as  the  area  of 
the  spot  bears  to  that  of  the  diaphragm  or  as  2,000, 
OOO2  is  to  26,000,000,000,0002,  i.  e.  as  1  to  169,000, 
000,000,000.  But  not  only  this — the  sun  and  star  must 
both  strike  the  same  spot  and  they  must  do  so  at  the  same 
instant  of  time,  consequently  we  are  obliged  to  square 
the  terms  of  our  ratio  a  second  time,  the  arithmetical  re- 
sult of  which,  for  the  sake  of  emphasis,  I  will  write  at 
length,  at  the  same  time  multiplying  it  by  50  for  the  rea- 
sons before  given.  The  chances,  then,  of  the  sun  and 
this  particular  star,  by  far  the  nearest  of  all,  meeting  and 
colliding  is  only  1  in  1,428,050,000,000,000,000,000,000, 
000,000,  and  even  this  is  an  underestimate. 


212  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

At  this  juncture  it  is  possible  that  Professor  Bicker- 
ton  or  his  supporters  may  seek  to  fall  back  upon  the  aid 
of  gravitational  attraction  to  bring  the  stars  into  touch. 
To  this  position  I  offer  three  objections,  namely;  (1)  It 
is  contrary  to  the  traditions  of  the  science,  traditions  to 
which  Mr.  Bickerton,  along  with  Newtonians  in  general, 
presumably  acknowledges  fealty,  to  the  effect  that  unless 
the  approaching  star  is  by  its  proper  motion  headed 
straight  at  the  sun,  it  cannot  strike  the  latter,  but  instead 
must  whirl  round  it  in  a  conic-section  orbit.  (2)  For  the 
star  to  come  fortuitously  within  even  Neptune 's  distance 
of  the  sun,  the  chances  would  still  be  found  only  one  in 
many  quadrillions ;  altogether  too  remote  a  possibility  to 
support  Mr.  Bickerton 's  claim  to  this  theory  being  a 
" general  order  or  plan  of  Nature."  Lastly,  if,  in  very 
truth,  the  star  and  sun  should  collide,  not  because  of  their 
inherent  motions,  but  on  account  of  their  mutual  attrac- 
tion, the  energy  of  their  resulting  critical  velocities,  di- 
rected, by  Newton's  second  law,  toward  their  respective 
centers,  would  bear  to  the  energy  of  their  proper-motion 
velocities  (based  on  the  known  value  of  the  sun's)  a  ratio 
of  something  like  5002  to  122,  or  1,600  to  1,  thus  ensuring 
total  and  not  partial  impact,  thereby  completely  invali- 
dating Professor  Bickerton 's  hypothesis  in  its  very  es- 
sence. 

THE  PLANETESIMAL  HYPOTHESIS 

There  are  two  hinges  to  the  cosmological  shutter- 
astronomy  and  geology.  In  order  to  make  it  swing  easily 
both  ways,  it  is  not  only  necessary  that  the  facts  of  as- 
tronomy be  successfully  correlated  with  one  another,  and 
the  facts  of  geology  with  one  another,  but  both  of  these 
sets  of  facts  must  likewise  be  mutually  coordinated. 
Nearly  a  score  of  years  ago  Doctor  Thomas  Chrowder 
Chamberlin,  who  for  the  past  quarter-century  has  been 
dean  of  the  scientific  faculty  of  the  University  of  Chicago, 
undertook  to  construct  a  system  of  cosmology  from  a 
geologist's  point  of  view.  His  researches  along  this  line 
have  been  summed  up  in  his  recent  work,  The  Origin  of 


EECENT  COSMOGONIES  213 

Uie  Earth;  and  the  name  which  he  gives  his  theory  is, 
The  Planetesimal  Hypothesis. 

Now,  there  are  two  fundamental  astronomical  condi- 
tions that  especially  concern  geologists  which  must  posi- 
tively be  supplied  by  any  cosmological  theory  before  it 
can  prove  acceptable,  and  both  of  these  concern  the  sun. 
These  conditions  are ;  first,  that  a  source  of  heat  be  found 
capable  of  maintaining  him  at  practically  an  even  aver- 
age temperature  over  a  period  of  the  order  of  a  thousand 
million  years,  and,  second,  that  the  source  so  found  shall 
consistently  explain  the  alternation  of  ice-  and  genial  ages 
which  have  occurred  in  the  course  of  the  earth's  geologi- 
cal history. 

On  the  first  of  these  problems  Doctor  Chamberlin 
does  not,  nor  does  he  try  to,  throw  any  new  light,  but  his 
chief  aim  is  avowedly  to  explain  the  alternation  of  the 
cold  and  the  warm  periods.  In  the  pursuit  of  this  object, 
he  informs  us,  was  he  led  "into  the  cosmogonic  fens  and 
fogs,"  whence  he  emerged  with  this  Planetesimal  Hy- 
pothesis as  his  quarry. 

Like  Professor  Bickerton,  Doctor  Chamberlin  de- 
rives the  solar  system  from  the  accidental  meeting  of  our 
ancestral  sun  with  another  star ;  but  with  this  difference, 
that  whereas  the  former  postulates  actual  collision,  the 
latter  contemplates  only  "approach  to  within  effective 
tidal  range.  He  pictures  the  sun  as  formerly  a  solitary 
star,  moving  under  the  head  of  its  so-called  proper 
motion,  being  fortuitously  met  or  overtaken  by  just  an- 
other such  star  as  himself.  Beginning  by  degrees  to  feel 
the  effect  of  their  mutual  attraction,  the  pair  quickly  ac- 
celerated their  approach,  and  in  the  natural  course  of 
events  whirled  once  around  their  common  center  of 
gravity  and  then  escaped  from  each  other  along  hyper- 
bolic paths.  This  incident  he  supposes  to  have  occurred 
so  long  ago  that  the  strange  star  has  had  sufficient  time 
to  lose  itself  among  the  other  stars  near  us. 

Coincidently  with  their  thus  drawing  toward  each 
other,  our  author  conceives  the  visitor  as  having  raised 
tides  upon  the  sun  (which  may  or  may  not  have  originally 
possessed  axial  rotation)  and  thus  stimulated  the  erup- 


214 FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

tive  tendency  which  observation  reveals  to  be  natural 
with  him,  and  perhaps  with  stars  generally.  When  the 
distance  between  them  was  still  great,  the  tides,  he 
opines,  were  necessarily  feeble  and  the  eruptive  stimulus 
correspondingly  faint ;  but  later  on,  as  the  point  of  peri- 
helion was  neared,  the  tides  increased  to  a  high  level  and 
the  accompanying  eruptions  became  commensurately 
more  terrific  in  their  intensity,  causing  the  sun  to  shoot 
out  great  bolts  of  viscous  matter  through  the  tidal  cones 
located  at  the  opposite  ends  of  his  diameter.  While  these 
bolts  were  thus  in  the  act  of  rising,  or  hung  suspended  in 
space  at  heights  ranging  from  zero  to  some  three  billions 
of  miles  (Neptune's  orbit),  they  were  drawn  forward  by 
the  attraction  of  the  passing  star.  Such  matter  as  for 
any  reason  was  deflected  only  slightly  in  this  manner  fell 
back  to  the  sun  on  about  the  same  spot  whence  it  had  is- 
sued ;  other  matter  being  drawn  forward  somewhat  more 
strongly,  fell  back  also,  but  angularly,  giving,  as  it  were, 
a  fillip  to  the  sun,  thereby  starting  or  accelerating  his 
axial  rotation ;  while  the  great  bulk  of  the  matter  was 
pulled  forward  with  sufficient  force  to  lift  it  into  orbital 
paths  more  or  less  elliptical.  Once  given  such  motion, 
under  Newtonian  interpretation,  they  would  retain  it 
permanently,  and  in  the  course  of  time  the  larger  nuclei, 
which  would  inevitably  have  resulted,  would  aggregate 
to  themselves  the  minute  particles,  or  "  plane tesimals." 

Doctor  Chamberlin  recognizes  that,  in  the  first  in- 
stance, all  the  orbits  would  probably  be  very  elliptical, 
but  opines  that  a  composite  of  many  of  them  (  a  condi- 
tion which  would  eventually  be  brought  about  by  a  mul- 
tiiplicity  of  collisions)  would  no  doubt  prove  more  nearly 
circular.  Hence  it  is,  he  says,  that  the  orbits  of  the  plan- 
ets are  only  slightly  eccentric,  whereas  those  of  the  as- 
teroids, which  have  (because  of  their  smalliiess)  experi- 
enced only  relatively  few  collisions,  are  quite  capricious 
and,  as  further  corroboration,  he  points  to  the  fact  that 
Mercury  and  Mars,  the  smallest  among  the  planets,  have 
the  most  eccentric  orbits  of  all.  Proceeding  further, 
Doctor  Chamberlin  argues  that,  besides  thus  accounting 
for  the  circularity  of  the  orbits  of  the  planets,  the  plan- 


RECENT  COSMOGONIES  215 

etesimal  impacts  upon  the  nucleating  bodies  probably 
gave  rise  to  the  direct  rotations,  and,  furthermore,  doubt- 
less generated  such  retrograde  rotations  as  are  known  to 
exist  within  the  system. 

Doctor  Chamberlin  seeks  to  explain  the  recurrence 
of  ice  ages  in  the  long  past,  not  by  variations  in  the  solar 
temperature,  but  by  the  periodicity  of  terrestrial  crustal 
convulsions.  For  this  he  prepares  the  ground  by  deny- 
ing the  sufficiency  of  the  impact  hypothesis  to  explain  any 
part  of  the  earth 's  present  internal  heat,  and,  instead,  de- 
rives this  heat  partly  from  the  bodily  contraction  of  the 
planet  and  partly  from  radio-activity.  He  argues,  that 
during  periods  of  quiescence  this  internal  heat  accumu- 
lates and,  finally,  having  gained  sufficient  strength,  forces 
an  outlet  for  itself,  upheaving  the  crust  into  mountain 
ranges  and  loading  the  atmosphere  with  immense  quanti- 
ties of  carbonic  dioxide.  Now,  carbon  dioxide  is  an  effi- 
cient absorber  of  heat,  hence,  in  the  periods  when  the  at- 
mosphere was  rich  with  it — that  is  to  say,  during  the  in- 
terims between  the  mountain-making  cataclysms — the 
earth  experienced  her  genial  climates.  On  the  other 
hand,  however,  from  the  moment  of  the  subsiding  of  these 
convulsive  movements,  the  carbon  dioxide  began  to  be 
gradually  extracted  from  the  atmosphere,  by  plants  to 
form  coals  and  other  carbonaceous  deposits,  and  by  pre- 
cipitation in  the  rains  and  subsequent  absorption  in  the 
rocks ;  a  process  which  eventually  brought  about  periods 
of  low  temperature  immediately  preceding  the  upheaval 
next  in  order  of  events.  But  let  me  quote  from  his  own 
words  (Origin  of  the  Earth,  p.  103  et  seq.) : 

In  the  sun,  there  is  a  persistent  eruptive  tendency  of  great 
power.  At  short  intervals,  great  bolts  of  sun-substance  are  shot 
forth  at  high  velocities.  This  takes  place  without  any  obvious 
outside  stimulus;  or,  if  there  be  such  stimulus,  it  is  not  declared. 
Beyond  question  if  suitable  strong  stimulus  from  without  were 
brought  to  bear  on  the  sun,  such  as  the  differential  attraction  of 
a  passing  star,  it  would  respond  with  eruptions  of  much  greater 
intensity  and  mass. 

It  thus  appears  that  from  so  simple  a  cause  as  the  differential 
gravity  called  into  action  by  the  close  approach  of  one  massive 
body  to  another,  there  may  arise  a  graded  series  of  eruption^ 


216  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

ranging  from  fractional  ejections  to  profound  disruption  and 
dispersion,  according  to  the  closeness  of  approach,  the  relative 
masses  of  the  bodies,  and  their  internal  state.  The  ejected  parts 
will  pursue  such  courses  as  may  be  imposed  on  them  by  the  new 
forces  of  attraction  brought  into  play  by  the  changing  relations 
of  the  two  bodies,  both  of  which  are  necessarily  in  swift  curving 
motion,  while  one  or  both  are  losing  mass  by  disruptive  action.  *  * 

For  an  illustrative  case,  selected  to  suit  our  problem,  let  our 
sun,  in  its  ancestral  state,  be  the  body  approached.  For  its 
partner  in  action,  let  a  more  massive  star  be  chosen  and,  for  con- 
venience, let  it  be  so  dense  and  inert  that  its  response  to  the  re- 
action of  the  sun  upon  it  may  be  neglected.  In  addition  it  will 
be  convenient  to  speak  of  the  relative  changes  of  position  of  the 
two  as  if  the  whole  motion  were  made  by  the  passing  star.  *  *  * 

In  selecting  the  closeness  of  approach,  let  us  observe  that 
only  1/745  of  the  sun's  substance  was  required  to  form  our  whole 
planetary  system.  There  are  now  known  to  be  eight  planets, 
twenty-six  satellites,  and  about  eight  hundred  planetoids;  prob- 
ably the  whole  number  of  the  latter  may  ultimately  be  found  to 
be  a  thousand  or  so.  The  average  mass  of  these  minor  solar  at- 
tendants is  thus  only  about  1/745,000  of  the  mass  of  the  sun. 
The  average  mass  of  the  planets,  neglecting  the  planetoids  and 
satellites,  is  about  1/6,000.  Even  the  largest  planetary  mass  is 
less  than  a  thousandth  of  the  mass  of  the  sun.  It  was  not  nec- 
essary, therefore,  that  the  sun  should  give  forth  even  so  much 
as  one-tenth  of  i  per  cent  of  its  substance  to  form  the  largest 
planet,  assuming  that  the  whole  material  for  the  planet  was 
ejected  from  the  sun  by  a  single  impulse.  The  requirement  for 
the  earth  would  be  about  one  three-thousandth  of  i  per  cent  of 
the  sun.  It  thus  appears  that  the  draft  on  the  sun  to  supply  the 
substance  of  the  planets  was  very  small  relatively.  This  suggests 
that  the  passing  star,  if  it  had  the  mass  we  have  chosen,  must 
surely  have  had  such  slight  stimulating  effect  as  the  case  re- 
quired. We  assume  therefore  only  a  quite  distant  approach.  *  *  * 

Let  it  be  assumed  that  the  eruptivity  of  the  sun  was  of  the 
same  order  then  as  now.  At  present,  the  sun  is  almost  daily 
shooting  forth  gas-bolts  of  vast  dimensions  and  often  at  such 
velocities  that  they  rise  many  thousands  of  kilometers  above  its 
glowing  surface.  Conservative  computations  assign  these  erup- 
tive ejections  velocities  occasionally  reaching  one  hundred  or 
two  hundred  kilometers  per  second,  though  the  average  speed  is 
less.  Estimates  by  observers  of  high  standing  assign  much 
higher  velocities  in  certain  cases,  some  of  these  rising  to  several 
hundred  kilometers  per  second;  indeed,  velocities  that  surpass 
the  sun's  power  of  control  have  been  announced.  *  *  * 

It  is  assumed  that,  at  the  time  the  nebula  was  formed,  the 
greater  eruptions  of  the  sun  were  concentrated,  as  now,  in  two 


RECENT  COSMOGONIES  217 

belts  not  far  from  the  sun's  equator.  It  is  inferred  that,  as  the 
star  approached  from  a  distance,  its  first  feeble  stimulus  led  only 
to  moderate  ejectments  of  sun-substance  and  that  these  suffered 
so  slight  deviations  by  reason  of  the  forward  pull  of  the  star  that 
they  did  not  escape  striking  the  sun's  disk  on  their  return  and  so 
carried  into  the  sun  a  little  momentum  acquired  from  the  star. 
This  momentum  neutralized  an  equivalent  amount  of  the  momen- 
tum of  the.  sun's  rotation,  then  opposite  to  its  present  rotation. 
With  nearer  approach  of  the  star,  the  eruptions  increased  in 
mass  and  vigor  with  increased  effect  on  the  sun's  rotation.  With 
still  nearer  approach,  a  portion  of  the  projectiles  failed  to  strike 
the  sun's  disk  on  returning  and  swung  into  orbits  about  it.  Later, 
a  still  larger  part  of  the  increasingly  vigorous  projectiles  passed 
into  orbits,  and  these  orbits  grew  broader,  but  certain  portions 
of  the  projectiles  continued  to  return  to  the  sun  and  affect  its 
rotation. 

During  all  this  time  the  pull  of  the  star  was  oblique  to  the 
normal  ascensive  lines  of  the  sun's  greater  eruptions,  and  the 
sun  and  star  worked  at  cross-purposes;  but,  as  the  star  curved 
into  the  critical  part  of  its  path,  where  it  made  its  closest  ap- 
proach, it  passed  directly  over  the  belt  of  the  sun's  most  effec- 
tive eruptions,  and  not  only  the  most  favorable  co-operation  of 
sun  and  star  were  realized,  but  nearly  the  maximum  mutual  at- 
traction. It  is  assumed  that  the  greatest  eruptive  bolts  were 
then  shot  forth,  and  that  they  were  projected  with  the  greatest 
velocity.  It  is  taken  for  granted  that  the  stimulus  of  vigorous  ac- 
tion on  the  side  toward  the  star  would  react  as  stimulus  to  erup- 
tion on  the  other  side,  and  that  nearly  simultaneous  bolts  would 
issue  from  the  proximate  and  from  the  distal  side  of  the  sun. 
It  is  supposed  that  the  action  would  be  most  effective  when  the 
first  eruptive  belt  was  crossed,  for  then  the  projectile  forces  drew 
on  the  fullest  stores  of  eruptive  potency  in  the  sun.  The  second 
pair  of  great  eruptions  are  assigned  to  the  stage  when  the  second 
belt  of  solar  eruptions,  on  the  farther  side  of  the  solar  equator, 
was  crossed.  These  two  pairs  of  eruptive  projectiles  of  the  first 
order  are  assumed  to  have  been  the  parents  of  the  four  great 
planets,  the  two  outermost — with  the  peculiarities  of  the  first- 
born—  growing  later  into  Neptune  and  Uranus ;  the  two  follow- 
ing, favored  by  the  pulsations  set  up  by  the  previous  great  erup- 
tions and  by  greater  facilities  for  growth,  but  lacking  the  fullness 
of  eruptive  resources  that  favored  the  first  pair,  consituted  the 
knots  that  grew  into  Saturn  and  Jupiter. 

Criticism  of  the  Planetesimal  Hypothesis 

If  Newton's  theory  of  tidal  production  is  objectively 
false,  as  Darwin,  Young,  Kelvin  and  a  host  of  others  who 


218 FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

have  made  a  physical  investigation  of  the  tides  reluc- 
tantly report  it  to  be,  and  as  I  think  I  have  deductively 
demonstrated  it  to  be,  of  course  the  Planetesimal  hypoth- 
esis is  false  also,  and  it  would  seem  that  nothing  more 
need  be  said.  The  tenacity  of  inherited  opinions,  how- 
ever, is  unfortunately  often  far  more  powerful  in  mold- 
ing human  opinion  than  truth  itself,  and  so  it  becomes 
necessary  to  subject  the  theory  in  question  to  a  test  by 
the  standards  generally  recognized,  whether  those  stand- 
ards be,  in  fact,  genuine  or  spurious. 

In  a  former  place  it  was  pointed  out  that,  according 
to  Newton's  Corollary,  the  height  of  the  tide  is  a  function 
of  the  thickness  of  the  equatorial  ring,  and  that  where  no 
such  ring  exists  there  can  be  no  tide ;  hence  the  sun  could, 
technically,  bear  no  tides,  however  favorable  to  their 
creation  the  physical  circumstances  might  appear  to  be, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  he  has  no  equatorial  protuber- 
ance. The  learned  Doctor  could,  indeed,  reply  that  the 
ancestral  sun  might,  for  all  that,  have  had  such  a  pro- 
tuberance— but  then,  again,  it  might  not. 

The  next  question  to  settle  is  as  to  which  was  the 
vera  causa  of  this  planet-creating  convulsion  that  Doctor 
Chamberlin  describes — was  it  the  tidal  perturbation  or 
the  internal  disrupting  force?  The  Doctor  himself  does 
not  make  it  at  all  clear  which  is  which,  inasmuch  as  he  de- 
picts the  duration  and  progress  of  the  process,  not  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  well-known  spasmpdic,  violent,  and 
lawless  peculiarities  of  explosive  action,  but  with  the 
smooth  curve  of  tidal  flow  and  ebb.  Although,  quanti- 
tatively, the  tidal  force  could  not  have  amounted  to  more 
than  one-millionth  of  the  strength  of  the  eruptive  energy 
requisite  to  project  the  planets,  all  at  one  time,  into  their 
respective  orbits,  yet  he  sets  up  the  lesser  agent  as  the 
controller  for  the  methodical  liberation  of  the  greater! 
Granting  that  the  tidal  agitation  supplied  exactly  the 
stimulus  requisite  to  call  the  alleged  eruptive  forces  into 
action,  then  the  latter  should  have  broken  loose,  not  in 
the  modulated  manner  of  a  tidal  swell,  as  pictured  by  our 
author,  but  in  a  sudden  and  maximal  outburst,  from 
which  there  would  follow  not  gradual  intensification  of 


RECENT  COSMOGONIES  219 

the  action,  but,  rather,  gradual  subsidence  to  the  normal 
state  of  quiescence.  In  short,  he  makes  the  tail  wag  the 
dog. 

Next,  let  us  compare  these  two  dynamical  agencies 
quantitatively:  To  project  all  the  planets  into  their  re- 
spective  orbits  would  obviously  demand  the  expenditure 
of  precisely  as  much  thermal  (explosive)  energy  as  would 
be  generated  by  their  fall  thence  into  the  sun.  It  so  hap- 
pens that  this  has  already  been  computed  for  us  by  Sir 
Eobert  Ball  (Story  of  the  Heavens,  p.  520) : 

Were  Jupiter  to  fall  into  the  sun  enough  heat  would  be 
thereby  produced  to  scorch  the  whole  solar  system,  while  all  the 
planets  together  would  be  capable  of  producing  heat  which",  if 
properly  economized,  would  supply  the  radiation  of  the  sun  for 
45,000  years. 

Unfortunately,  Doctor  Chamberlin  is  silent  as  to  the 
magnitude  of  the  visiting  star,  contenting  himself  with 
the  vague  statement  that  "it  was  more  massive  than  our 
sun";  nor  is  he  any  more  definite  as  to  its  perihelion  re- 
moteness, merely  opining  that  it  was  * '  quite  distant. ' '  It 
is  therefore  impossible  for  us  to  reduce  to  definite  terms 
of  thermal  heat  (for  the  sake  of  comparison)  the  tidal 
force  that  Doctor  Chamberlin  may  have  in  mind.  Sup- 
posing, though,  that  this  amounted  to  as  much  as  the 
radiation  of  the  sun  for  a  period  of  16  days — a  purposely 
much  exaggerated  estimate — it  would  still  be  only  1-1,000, 
000  as  great  as  his  required  eruptive  forces.  To  get  an 
idea  of  this  disparity,  it  may  be  correctly  represented  by 
that  of  a  small  boy  in  a  skiff  attempting  to  tow  one  of  our 
largest  battleships. 

That  a  tidal  force  relatively  so  insignificant  could,  by 
coming  fortuitously  to  the  aid  of  a  pent-up  force  so  in- 
comparably greater,  not  only  suffice  to  release  it,  but  also 
to  master  and  govern  its  methodical  disbursement  and  ap- 
plication to  cosmic  purposes,  is  manifestly  absurd,  unless, 
indeed,  there  be  shown  some  automatic  mechanism  or 
some  purposeful  intelligence  directing  to  that  end.  Sup- 
posing, on  the  other  hand,  the  actuality  of  such  an  enor- 
mous explosive  reservoir  residing  in  the  sun,  how  are  we 
to  explain  either  its  conservation  and  accumulation  or  its 


220  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

multi-millenially  deferred  deliverance?  The  incessant 
ebullition  going  on  in  the  plastic  body  of  the  sun  pro- 
claims, not  a  storing-up  of  heat  but  its  steady  escape  and 
dissipation.  How,  in  the  name  of  sanity,  can  a  tide,  how- 
ever powerful,  be  postulated  as  liberating  gases  already 
freely  escaping  of  themselves? 

It  is  possible  that,  in  deference  to  the  recent  philo- 
sophical revulsion  against  the  thermodynamic  doctrine  of 
the  impermanency  of  nature,  Doctor  Chamberlin  may  im- 
agine his  ancestral  sun  as  having  entered  upon  a  decline 
whence  it  was  rescued  and  resuscitated  by  this  tidal 
elixir.  In  that  case,  one  might  suppose  the  sun  to  have 
acquired  a  solid  crust,  of  uncertain  thickness,  capable  of 
penning  up  the  gathering  tempests  within.  The  query 
then  arises  as  to  just  how  thick  that  crust  should  have 
been  in  order  to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  situation. 

One  way  to  dispose  of  this  query  would  be  to  point 
out  that  the  very  existence  of  such  a  crust,  thick  or  thin, 
being,  by  premiss,  the  result  of  cooling  off,  precludes  the 
hypothesizing  of  any  such  rampant  interior  forces  at  all, 
and  that,  once  begun,  the  cooling  process  would  neces- 
sarily continue  progressively  to  a  state  of  total  frigidity 
and  inaction.  To  assert  that  such  a  decadent  sun 
harbored  a  thermal  reserve  equal  to  45,000  years'  solar 
radiation,  yet  allowed  its  exterior  to  chill  into  an  im- 
prisoning shell,  is  a  contradiction  in  terms.  Further- 
more, the  stauncher  the  shell  the  stronger  the  tide  re- 
quired to  breach  it,  supposing  such  an  event  to  have 
really  occurred ;  and  this,  as  we  shall  see,  raises  up  new 
difficulties. 

Whether  through  inability  or  negligently,  Doctor 
Chamberlin  discreetly  refrains  from  citing  a  single  con- 
crete illustration  of  what  relation,  if  any,  between  the 
star's  mass  and  its  solar  distance  would  have  sufficed  to 
meet  the  demands  of  his  problem;  subtly  leaving  upon 
the  mind  of  the  uncritical  reader  the  impression  that 
the  possible  choice  of  combinations  of  these  two  factors 
is  practically  unlimited.  Let  us  look  into  this  matter 
closely : 


RECENT  COSMOGONIES  221 

In  the  first  place,  we  must  remember  that  the  planets 
do  not  revolve  around  the  sun  with  equal  velocities,  but 
with  velocities  varying  greatly  with  their  central  dis- 
tances. Thus  Mercury,  the  nearest  planet  to  the  sun, 
travels  some  eight  times  faster  than  Neptune,  the  outer- 
most. Doctor  Chamberlin  assumes  that  all  the  planets 
alike  simultaneously  acquired  their  tangential  motions 
from  the  gravitational  attraction  of  the  passing  star.  If 
this  were  so,  why  did  they  not  all  start  out  with  prac- 
tically the  same  speed!  In  order  to  make  clear  how  the 
planets  acquired  their  Keplerian  velocities,  Doctor 
Chamberlin  ought  to  show  us  just  the  spot  where  the 
strange  star  might  have  been  with  reference  to  the  string 
of  planets,  just  how  large  it  might  have  been,  and  just 
how  far  from  the  sun,  in  order  to  bring  about  the  present 
planetary  scheme.  Had  our  author  succeeded  in  figuring 
out  any  such  combination,  he  would  doubtless  have  men- 
tioned the  fact  in  his  book;  but  he  doesn't.  Nor  shall  I 
consume  the  reader's  time  by  mathematically  demon- 
strating the  impossibility  of  any  such  combination  exist- 
ing. This  much,  at  least,  should  be  plain,  that  inasmuch 
as  Mercury  travels  faster  than  any  other  planet,  the  star 
would  have  to  be  predicated  as  quite  close  to  the  sun  and 
certainly  not  as  far  away  as  Venus,  else  the  latter  should 
possess  the  higher  velocity;  which  it  doesn't. 

Inasmuch  as  only  terrestrial  tides  have  come  within 
our  daily  experience,  the  question  has  never  specifically 
arisen  as  to  what  effect,  if  any,  the  mass  of  the  ~body  af- 
fected has  on  the  heights  of  its  tides.  For  example,  sup- 
pose the  sun  were  an  exact  duplicate  of  the  earth,  save  in 
the  one  respect  of  mass,  and  that  the  two  were  equi-dis- 
tant  from  each  other  and  from  the  moon,  would  the  lunar 
tides  on  the  sun  be  then  exactly  as  high  as  those  on  the 
earth,  or  would  they  be  directly  proportional  to  their 
mass,  or  would  they  be  inversely  proportional,  or  just 
what  rule  would  obtain?  In  the  absence  of  any  surer 
guide,  let  us  assume  the  tidal  heights  to  Toe,  inversely, 
functions  of  the  masses  of  the  bodies  affected,  and  that 
the  star,  in  order  to  raise  upon  the  sun  tides  commensu- 
rate with  our  terrestrial  tides,  had  to  exceed  the  size  of  the 


222 FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

sun  as  much  as  the  latter  outweighs  the  earth.  Suppos- 
ing, then,  the  star  to  have  come  to  within  46,000,000  miles 
of  the  sun  (i.  e.  one-half  the  earth's  mean  distance,  and 
one-third  way  between  Mercury  and  Venus)  it  must,  un- 
der Newton's  rule  of  cubes,  have  possessed  a  mass  some 
40,000  times  the  solar  mass  and  a  diameter  of  18,000,000 
miles!  It  goes  without  saying  that  a  body  of  such  im- 
mensity would  have  swallowed  up  our  pygmy  sun  in  short 
order,  nor  left  a  vestige  behind.  Moving  the  star  out 
farther  does  not  mend  matters;  if  to  the  earth's  distance, 
its  diameter  would  have  to  be  increased  to  36,000,000 
miles,  and  if  to  Neptune's,  more  than  a  billion.  All  this 
calculation  is  based  on  the  exaggerated  supposition  that 
a  tide  upon  the  sun  comparable  to  that  the  latter  pro- 
duces upon  the  earth  would  have  sufficed  to  pry  open  a 
crust  which,  until  then,  had  been  able  to  resist  the  inces- 
sant straining  of  a  jinnee  a  million  times  stronger.  That 
Doctor  Chamberlin  himself  is  thinking  of  a  compara- 
tively weak  tide  sufficiently  appears  from  his  mild  ex- 
pressions: "For  its  partner  in  action  let  a  more  massive 
star  be  chosen"  *  *  *  "only  a  quite  distant  approach," 
and  "let  it  be  so  dense  and  inert  that  its  response  to  the 
reaction  of  the  sun  upon  it  may  be  neglected. ' ' 

In  one  of  his  veiled  allusions  to  Professor  Bicker- 
ton's  theory,  our  author  seeks  to  emphasize  the  greater 
probability  of  a  "near  approach"  over  actual  collision,  in 
which  contention  he  is  clearly  justified.  But,  though  the 
argument  against  the  probabilities  of  his  own  hypothe- 
sis is  thereby  relatively  weakened,  it  still  remains  strong 
enough  to  overthrow  his,  too.  In  order  to  facilitate  the 
calculation,  let  us  assume  for  the  maximum  field  of  "ef- 
fective approach"  a  diameter  of  200,000,000  miles,  then 
the  area  of  our  original  postulated  diaphragm  would  be 
to  it  in  the  ratio  of  2002  to  26,000,0002,  or  as  1  to  16,900, 
000,000,  which  latter  number  being  squared  and  then  mul- 
tiplied by  50,  as  previously  explained  in  the  discussion  of 
Professor  Bickerton's  hypothesis,  yields  the  probabilities 
against  even  such  an  approach  as  14,265,500,000,000,000, 
000,000,  to  one ! 

Next  to  the  supreme  problem  of  the  origin,  mainte- 


RECENT  COSMOGONIES  223 

nance,  and  regulation  of  the  planetary  motions,  comes 
that  of  the  source  of  the  solar  heat.  Heretofore  it  has 
been  the  aim  of  cosmologists  to  seek  a  solution  of  both 
these  problems  concurrently  and  compatibly,  but  Doctor 
Chamberlin  has  unique  ideas  of  his  own.  Though  os- 
tensibly professing  to  believe  in  the  classical  division  of 
energy  into  potential  and  kinetic,  and  that  old  stars  are 
thermally  impoverished  and  moribund,  he  naively  makes 
our  ancestral  and  presumably  senile  sun  overturn  the 
order  of  things  and  hurl  the  planets  into  their  distant 
places.  He  has  just  reversed  the  film.  Having  started 
out  with  the  avowed  object  of  clearing  up  the  mystery  of 
climatic  revulsions,  he  has  ended  by  only  floundering 
deeper  into  the  bog  out  of  which  he  volunteered  to  lead 
us. 

THE  THEORY  OF  AKRHENITJS 

The  celebrated  Director  of  the  Physics  Chemical 
Nobel  Institute  of  Stockholm,  Svante  Arrhenius,  has  ex- 
pounded his  views  on  this  subject  of  cosmology  in  a  small 
volume  called  Worlds  in  the  Making.  As  Doctor  Cham- 
berlin 's  theory  was  conceived  from  the  viewpoint  of  a 
geologist,  so  is  this  one  conceived  from  the  viewpoint  of 
the  astrophysicist  and  chemist. 

According  to  a  recent  doctrine,  the  molecules  of  mat- 
ter are  believed  to  be  in  constant  motion.  Usually  those 
are  so  closely  associated  that  they  are  much  subject  to 
collision,  but  in  free  space,  where  they  seldom  strike 
against  one  another,  they  are  supposed  to  travel  in 
straight  lines  at  velocities  varying  with  their  kinds. 
Such  motions  when  less  than  the  "parabolic  velocity"  do 
not  permit  the  escape  of  the  given  molecule,  but  when  the 
contrary  is  the  case,  the  molecule,  it  is  declared,  will 
never  again  return  to  the  cosmic  body  from  which  it  took 
its  flight.  Building  upon  this  uncertain  base,  Arrhenius 
imagines  these  vagabond  molecules  to  accumulate  for- 
tuitously in  the  dust  nebulae  which,  as  I  have  previously 
explained,  modern  scientists  assert  to  be  borne  out  by 
light  and  electrical  repulsive  forces. 


224  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

As  the  molecules  of  matter  are  fundamentally  con- 
strued to  be  perfectly  elastic,  Arrhenius  makes  no  con- 
structive use  of  their  high  velocities,  but  the  dust  par- 
ticles he  supposes  to  beat  each  other  into  a  glow  and  in 
this  state  to  attach  to  themselves  the  various  free  mole- 
cules with  which  they  come  in  contact.  Thus,  he  says, 
are  the  comets  and  the  nuclei  of  planets  formed. 

The  orbital  motions  of  the  planets  he  "  explains " 
thus  (Ibid.,  pp.  203  and  204) : 

By  their  collisions  with  the  masses  of  gases  which  they  en- 
counter, they  (the  dust  particles)  gradually  assume  a  circular 
movement  about  the  axis  of  rotation  of  the  nebula.  In  this  ro- 
tation they  condense  portions  of  the  gases  on  their  surface,  and 
hence  acquire  a  high  temperature — which  they  soon  lose  again, 
however,  owing  to  the  comparatively  rapid  radiation. 

Our  considerations  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  rotat- 
ing about  the  central  body  of  the  nebula  an  immense  mass  of 
gas,  and  that,  outside  this  mass,  there  are  other  centres  of  con- 
densation moving  about  the  central  body  together  with  the  masses 
of  gas  concentrated  about  them.  Owing  to  the  friction  between 
the  immigrated  masses  and  the  original  mass  of  gas  which  cir- 
culated in  the  equatorial  plane  of  the  central  body,  all  these 
masses  will  keep  near  the  equatorial  plane,  which  will  therefore 
deviate  little  from  the  ecliptic.  We  thus  obtain  a  proper  plane- 
tary system,  in  which  the  planets  are  surrounded  by  colossal 
spheres  of  gas  like  the  stars  in  the  Pleiades.  If  now,  the  planets 
have  very  small  mass  by  comparison  with  the  central  body — as  in 
our  solar  system — they  will  be  cooled  at  an  infinitely  faster  rate 
than  the  sun.  The  gaseous  masses  will  soon  shrink,  and  the 
periods  of  rotation  will  be  shortened;  but  for  those  planets,  at 
least,  which  are  situated  near  the  centre,  these  periods  will  orig- 
inally differ  little  from  the  rotation  of  the  central  body.  The 
dimensions  of  the  central  body  will  always  be  very  large,  and 
the  planets  circulating  about  it  will  produce  very  strong  tidal  ef- 
fects in  its  mass.  Its  period  of  rotation  will  be  shortened,  while 
the  orbital  rotation  of  the  planets  will  tend  to  become  lengthened. 
Thus  the  equilibrium  is  disturbed;  it  is  re-established  again,  be- 
cause the  planet  is,  so  to  say,  lifted  away  from  the  sun,  as  G.  H. 
Darwin  has  so  ingeniously  shown  with  regard  to  the  moon  and 
the  earth.  Similar  relations  will  prevail  in  the  neighborhood  of 
those  planets  which  will  thus  become  provided  with  moons. 
Hence  we  understand  the  peculiar  fact  that  all  the  planets  move 
almost  in  the  same  plane,  the  so-called  ecliptic,  and  in  approxi- 
mately circular  orbits;  that  they  all  move  in  the  same  direction, 


RECENT  COSMOGONIES  225 

and  that  they  have  the  same  direction  of  rotation  in  common  with 
their  moons  and  with  the  central  body,  the  sun.  It  is  only  the 
outermost  planets,  like  Uranus  and  Neptune,  in  whose  cases  the 
tidal  effects  were  not  of  much  consequence,  that  form  exceptions 
to  this  rule. 

Our  author's  second  aim  is  to  point  out  what  he  re- 
gards as  Nature 's  method  of  self -restoration  by  revers- 
ing,^ as  it  were,  the  thermal  hour  glass  and  starting  the 
heat  current  on  the  downward  course  once  more.  Quot- 
ing Clausius '  old  maxim,  *  '  The  energy  of  the  universe  is 
constant;  the  entropy  of  the  universe  tends  to  a  maxi- 
mum", he  proceeds : 

The  famous  Scotch  physicist,  Clerk  Maxwell,  has  conceived 
of  this  case.  Imagine  a  vessel  which  is  divided  by  a  partition  into 
two  halves,  both  charged  with  a  gas  of  perfectly  uniform  tem- 
perature. Let  the  partition  be  provided  with  a  number  of  small 
holes  which  would  not  allow  more  than  one  gas  molecule  to  pass 
at  a  time.  In  each  hole  Maxwell  places  a  small,  intelligent  being 
(one  of  his  "demons"),  which  directs  all  the  molecules  which 
enter  into  the  hole,  and  which  have  a  greater  velocity  than  the 
mean  velocity  of  all  the  molecules,  to  the  one  side,  and  which 
sends  to  the  other  side  all  the  molecules  of  a  smaller  velocity  than 
the  average.  All  the  undesirable  molecules  the  demon  bars  by 
means  of  a  little  flap.  In  this  way  all  the  molecules  of  a  velocity 
greater  than  the  average  may  be  collected  in  the  one  compart- 
ment, and  all  the  molecules  of  a  lesser  velocity  in  the  other  com- 
partment. In  other  words,  heat — for  heat  consists  of  the  move- 
ments of  molecules — will  pass  from  the  one  constantly  cooling 
side  to  the  other,  which  is  constantly  raising  its  temperature,  and 
which  must  therefore  become  warmer  than  the  former. 

In  this  instance  heat  would  therefore  pass  from  a  colder  to 
a  warmer  body,  and  the  entropy  would  diminish. 

Nature,  of  course,  does  not  know  any  such  intelligent  beings. 
Nevertheless,  similar  conditions  may  occur  in  celestial  bodies  in 
the  gaseous  state.  When  the  molecules  of  gas  in  the  atmosphere 
of  a  celestial  body  have  a  sufficient  velocity — which  in  the  case 
of  the  earth  would  be  nkm.  (7  miles)  per  second— and  when 
they  travel  outward  into  the  most  extreme  strata,  they  may  pass 
from  the  range  of  attraction  out  into  infinite  space,  after  the  man- 
ner of  a  comet,  which,  if  endowed  with  sufficient  velocity  when 
near  the  sun,  must  escape  from  the  solar  system.  According  to 
Dr.  Johnstone  Stoney,  it  is  in  this  way  that  the  moon  has  lost  its 
original  atmosphere.  This  loss  of  gas  is  certainly  imperceptible 
in  the  case  of  our  sun  and  of  large  planets  like  the  earth.  But 
it  may  play  an  important  part  in  the  household  of  the  nebulae, 


226  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

where  all  the  radiation  from  the  hot  celestial  bodies  is  stored  up, 
and  where,  owing  to  the  enormous  distances,  the  restraining  force 
of  gravity  is  exceedingly  feeble.  Thus  the  nebulae  will  lose  their 
most  rapid  molecules  from  their  outer  portions,  and  they  will 
therefore  be  cooling  in  these  outer  strata.  This  loss  of  heat  is 
compensated  by  the  radiation  from  the  stars.  If,  now,  there  were 
only  nebulae  of  one  kind  in  the  whole  universe,  those  escaped 
molecules  would  finally  land  on  some  other  nebula,  heat  equilib- 
rium would  thus  be  established  between  the  different  nebulae,  and 
the  "heat-death"  be  realized.  But  we  have  already  remarked 
that  the  nebulae  enclose  many  immigrated  celestial  bodies,  which 
are  able  to  condense  the  gases  from  their  neighborhood,  and  which 
thereby  assume  a  higher  temperature. 

The  third  aim  of  Doctor  Arrhenius  is  to  account  for 
the  sun's  heat.  To  this  end  he  prepares  the  ground  by 
exposing  the  shortcomings  of  Helmholtz's  hypothesis,  as 
well  as  of  others,  and  then  selects  for  his  own  the  now 
familiar  conception  of  the  atomic  dissociation  of  matter. 
In  this  particular  field  he  is  esteemed  preeminent,  having 
won  the  Nobel  prize  in  1903  for  his  researches  along  this 
line.  To  quote  again  from  his  book  (p.  91) : 

It  is  quite  incorrect  to  assert  that  high  temperatures  must 
necessarily  decompose  all  chemical  compounds  into  their  elements. 
The  mechanical  theory  of  heat  teaches  us  only  that  at  rising  tem- 
peratures products  are  formed  whose  formation  goes  hand  in 
hand  with  an  absorption  of  heat.  Thus,  at  a  high  temperature, 
ozone  is  formed  from  oxygen,  although  ozone  is  more  complex 
in  composition  than  oxygen,  and  by  this  reaction  750  calories  are 
consumed  when  one  gramme  of  oxygen  is  transformed  into  one 
gramme  of  ozone.  We  likewise  know  that  in  the  electric  arc,  at 
a  temperature  of  about  3000°,  a  compound  is  formed  under  con- 
sumption of  heat  by  the  oxygen  and  nitrogen  of  the  atmosphere. 
A  new  method  for  the  technical  preparation  of  nitric  acid  from 
the  nitrogen  of  the  air  is  based  upon  this  reaction.  Again,  the 
well-known  compounds,  benzene  and  acetylene,  are  formed  from 
their  elements,  carbon  and  hydrogen,  under  absorption  of  heat. 
All  these  bodies  can  only  be  synthetized  from  their  elementary 
constituents  at  high  temperatures.  We  further  know  from  ex- 
perience that  the  higher  the  temperature  at  which  a  reaction  takes 
place,  the  greater,  in  general,  the  amount  of  heat  which  it  absorbs. 

A  similar  law  applies  to  the  influence  of  pressure.  When  the 
pressure  is  increased,  such  processes  will  be  favored  as  will  yield 
products  of  a  smaller  volume.  If  we  imagine  that  a  mass  of  gas 
rushes  down  from  a  higher  stratum  of  the  sun  into  the  depths 
of  the  sun's  interior,  as  gases  do  in  sun-spots,  complex  com- 


RECENT  COSMOGONIES  227 

pounds  will  be  produced  by  virtue  of  the  increased  pressure. 
This  pressure  must  increase  at  an  immense  rate  towards 
the  interior  of  the  sun,  by  about  3500  atmospheres  per  kilometre. 
The  gasses  which  dissociate  into  atoms  at  the  lower  pressures  and 
the  higher  temperatures  of  the  extreme  solar  strata  above  the 
photosphere  clouds  enter  into  chemical  combination  in  the  depths 
of  the  spots,  as  we  learn  from  spectroscopic  examination.  Owing 
to  their  high  temperatures,  these  compounds  absorb  enormous 
quantities  of  heat  in  their  building  up,  and  these  quantities  of 
heat  are  to  those  which  are  concerned  in  the  chemical  processes 
of  the  earth  in  the  same  ratio  as  the  temperature  of  the  sun  is 
to  that  at  which  the  chemical  reactions  are  proceeding  on  the 
earth.  As  these  gases  penetrate  farther  into  the  sun,  temperature 
and  pressure  are  still  more  and  more  increased,  and  there  will 
result  products  more  and  more  abounding  in  energy  and  con- 
centration. We  may,  therefore,  imagine  the  interior  of  the  sun 
charged  with  compounds  which,  brought  to  the  surface  of  the 
sun,  would  dissociate  under  an  enormous  evolution  of  heat  and 
an  enormous  increase  of  volume.  These  compounds  have  to  be 
regarded  as  the  most  powerful  blasting  agents,  by  comparison 
with  which  dynamite  and  gun-cotton  would  appear  like  toys.  In 
confirmation  of  this  view,  we  observe  that  gases  when  penetrating 
into  the  photosphere  clouds  are  able  to  eject  prominences  at  a 
stupendous  velocity,  attaining  several  hundred  kilometres  per 
second.  This  velocity  surpasses  that  of  the  swiftest  rifle-bullet 
about  a  thousandfold.  We  may  hence  ascribe  to  the  explosives 
which  are  confined  in  the  interior  of  the  sun  energies  which  must 
be  a  million  times  greater  than  the  energy  of  our  blasting  agents. 
(For  the  energy  increases  with  the  square  of  the  velocity.)  And 
yet  these  solar  blasting  agents  have  already  given  up  a  large  part 
of  their  energy  during  their  passage  from  the  sun's  interior.  It 
thus  becomes  conceivable  that  the  solar  energy — instead  of  hold- 
ing out  for  4000  years,  as  it  would  if  it  depended  upon  the  com- 
bustion of  a  solar  sphere  made  out  of  carbon — will  last  for  some- 
thing like  four  thousand  million  years.  Perhaps  we  may  further 
extend  this  period  to  several  billions. 

As  his  final  and  main  thesis,  the  learned  savant 
undertakes  to  explain  how  life-germs  are  disseminated 
through  the  universe.  First,  he  disposes  of  the  argu- 
ment in  behalf  of  spontaneous  generation  by  citing  its 
want  of  ocular  proof  and  absence  of  physical  demon- 
stration. He  then  reminds  us  of  Schwarzschild's  deduc- 
tion, that  particles  approximating  .00016  mm.  in  diameter 
are  the  most  responsive  to  radiation  pressure,  and  seeks 
to  extend  this  category  to  include  plant  and  animal  spores 


228  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

and  germs.  These,  he  says,  being  borne  away,  literally, 
on  the  wings  of  light  find  lodgment  on  distant  worlds,  and 
originate  new  chains  of  evolution  more  or  less  resem- 
bling life  terrestrial. 


The  theories  above  outlined,  circumscribed,  strained, 
and  mutually  contradictory  as  they  may  appear,  repre- 
sent the  supremest  efforts  of  modern  scholastic  as- 
tronomy. Their  very  multiplicity  is,  of  itself,  in  my 
judgment,  the  sufficient  proof  of  their  unsatisfactoriness 
and  unsoundness,  and  demonstrates  the  urgent  need  of  a 
cosmic  philosophy  big  enough  and  broad  enough  to  in- 
clude the  entire  physical  universe  under  one  clear,  con- 
sistent, dynamical  generalization. 


IX 


THE  SUN 

HOW  wonderful  the  sun ! 
To  the  casual  observer  our  two  luminaries  appear 
to  be  of  about  the  same  size,  but  the  disparity  be- 
tween their  actual  sizes  is  almost  incredibly  great.  In 
round  numbers  the  sun  is  400  times  further  from  us  than 
the  moon,  consequently  their  real  diameters  must  bear  to 
each  other  the  same  ratio.  The  volumes  of  spheres,  how- 
ever, are  to  each  other  as  the  cubes  of  their  diameters; 
hence  the  bulk  of  the  larger  luminary  is  some  64,000,000 
times  that  of  the  smaller.  Imagine  then,  the  substance  of 
the  former  to  be  divided  into  this  number  of  little  moons, 
strung  together  like  beads  upon  a  strand,  how  far  do  you 
suppose  this  rope  of  luminous  orbs  would  reach  for  deck- 
ing out  our  system?  For  answer,  multiply  2160  miles 
(the  lunar  diameter)  by  64,000,000  and  compare  the  re- 
sult, 138,000,000,000  miles,  with  the  following  dimensions, 
at  the  same  time  allowing  liberally  for  artistic  effects : 

Sum  of  the  distances  from  the  sun  Miles 

to  each  of  his  several  planets 6,280,000,000 

Allowance  for  festooning 2,000,000,000 

Sum  of  the  distances  from  the  various 

planets  to  each  of  the  others 43,000,000,000 

Allowance  for  festooning 12,000,000,000 

Sum  of  all  the  planetary  orbits 40,000,000,000 

For  adornment  of  all  the  subordinate 

systems  after  the  same  manner 1,000,000,000 

Surplus  for  latticing  the  asteroids  to- 
gether   33,720,000,000 


Total 138,000,000,000 


230  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

Of  the  intensity  of  the  sun's  brightness  an  idea  may 
be  gained  by  a  comparison  of  the  following  facts:  At 
the  distance  of  Neptune  the  sun  subtends  an  angle  of 
slightly  more  than  a  minute  of  arc,  or,  to  cite  an  illustra- 
tion, it  subtends  the  same  angle  as  a  cent  piece  does  at 
the  distance  of  200  feet — obviously  too  small  an  area  to 
be  recognized  as  a  disc.  Now,  it  has  been  repeatedly 
estimated,  with  care,  that  we  derive  600,000  times  as 
much  light  from  the  sun  as  we  do  from  the  full  moon; 
hence  putting  two  and  two  together,  it  follows  that  the 
solar  spark  yields  as  much  light  to  the  inhabitants  of 
Neptune  as  would  a  battery  of  666  full  moons  such  as  our 
own. 

To  the  novice  it  might  seem  a  comparatively  easy 
matter  to  determine  the  temperature  of  the  sun,  but  that 
it  is  by  no  means  so  is  shown  by  the  great  diversity  in  the 
estimates  made  at  various  periods  by  recognized  authori- 
ties; varying,  as  they  do,  between  6,000  and  upwards  of 
a  million  degrees.  In  his  recent  work,  The  Sun  (pp.  109- 
116),  after  describing  the  four  methods  which  he  deems 
the  most  dependable,  Doctor  Abbot  says:  " Hence  we 
conclude  that  there  is  a  high  probability  that  the  average 
temperature  of  the  apparent  photosphere  exceeds  5860°, 
or  even  6260°,  on  the  absolute  Centrigrade  scale,  and  may 
be  as  high  as  7,000°  absolute  Centrigrade ' '.  In  passing 
let  me  record  my  substantial  agreement  in  this  estimate. 

However,  that  there  is  still  a  mystery  behind  this  one 
of  temperature  yet  to  be  explained  away,  will  appear 
from  the  following  considerations :  Construing  the  earth's 
disc  as  part  of  the  surface  of  a  sphere  186,000,000  miles 
in  diameter  (i.  e.,  double  the  earth's  distance  from  the 
sun),  and  comparing  this  surface  with  that  of  the  sun, 
whose  diameter  is  865,000  miles,  and,  further  remember- 
ing that  the  surfaces  of  spheres  are  to  each  other  as  the 
squares  of  their  diameters,  it  develops  that  the  radiation 
of  each  square  foot  of  the  sun's  area  must  answer  for  the 
heating  of  each  46,000  square  feet  of  the  earth's  area, 
considered  as  a  disc.  We  should  not  forget,  however, 
that  the  sun 's  rays  fall  on  the  same  hemisphere  only  half 
of  the  24  hours  and  that  it  is  a  hemisphere,  and  not  a  flat 


THE  SUN  231 


disc,  with  which  we  have  to  deal.  Making  corrections 
for  these  facts,  we  find  that,  instead  of  our  former  result 
remaining  at  46,000,  it  must  be  increased  to  184,000 
square  feet,  being  equivalent  to  a  small  city  block  425 
feet  each  way,  or,  in  the  farmer's  standard,  4-*4  acres. 

Here  we  must  call  to  mind  that  superimposed  upon 
this  block  is  a  great  column  of  air,  variously  estimated 
at  from  50  to  150  miles  in  height,  but  attenuating  rapidly 
with  the  altitude.  Not  only,  however,  does  the  air  de- 
crease in  density  with  altitude,  but  it  decreases  in  tem- 
perature as  well ;  and  where  the  column  may  be  supposed 
to  end,  there  is  no  confining  wall,  but  the  doorway  is  leff 
wide  open,  permitting  the  free  escape  of  warmth  into  the 
boundless  outdoors  of  space,  where  the  reigning  tempera- 
ture is  generally  believed  to  be  absolute  zero,  or — 273°  C. 
Inasmuch  as  it  is  impossible  to  make  computations  with- 
out definite  figures  to  begin  with,  let  us  try  to  approxi- 
mate the  facts,  as  nearly  as  we  may,  by  assuming  that  the 
atmospheric  column  in  question  is  equivalent  to  another 
column  of  air  of  sea-level  density  7  miles  in  height  and 
possessed  of  an  average  temperature  of  0°  C.  It  is  such 
a  volume  as  this,  then,  184,000  sq.  ft.  x  36,000  feet,  that 
modern  scientists  suppose  to  be  maintained  273 °C  above 
the  absolute  by  the  unaided  radiation  from  a  single 
square  foot  of  solar  surface!  We  may  emphasize  these 
figures  by  mentally  dividing  this  great  column  into 
smaller  proportional  dimensions.  Imagine  a  hall  100 
feet  in  the  clear  covering  a  ground  space  equivalent  to  a 
small  city  block,  then  the  contents  will  be  1-360  of  our 
column.  Again,  let  it  be  assumed  that  the  outside  tem- 
perature is  0°C  and  that  that  within  the  hall  is  main- 
tained at  27.3°  C  (the  main  doors  being  all  the  time  kept 
wide  open)  how  large,  think  you,  need  the  miniature  sun 
be  to  serve  as  the  furnace?  The  cubical  contents  of  the 
hall  being  only  1-360  that  of  our  atmospheric  column,  and 
the  lift  in  temperature  only  1-10  as  high,  there  would  be 
required  a  heat  source  possessing  only  1-3600  of  a  square 
foot  of  surface,  or  1-5  inch  square,  indicating  a  sun  no 
larger  than  a  buck-shot!  In  this  estimate,  be  it  noted, 
we  have  omitted  to  take  into  consideration  the  oceans, 


232  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

which,  according  to  the  teaching  of  our  scientists,  are 
maintained  above  freezing  point  solely  by  the  sun's 
radiation.  Were  we  to  allow  for  this  added  achievement 
on  the  part  of  the  real  sun,  the  miniature  one  need  be 
scarcely  more  than  half  as  large  as  the  buck-shot  previ- 
ously arrived  at!  I  earnestly  call  upon  the  reader  to 
ponder  these  wonders  seriously  in  order  that  he  may 
hereafter  the  better  realize  the  necessity  of  discarding, 
as  inadmissible,  all  solar  hypotheses  based  on  the  doc- 
trine of  conservation  of  energy,  and  in  order,  also,  that 
he  may  more  keenly  appreciate  the  heretofore  overlooked 
role  that  the  ebullition  of  the  sun  plays  in  the  intensifica- 
tion of  his  radiation. 

Not  less  amazing,  when  we  attempt  to  reconcile  it 
with  the  doctrine  of  conservation,  is  the  reckless  profli- 
gacy of  Nature.  All  the  planets  taken  together  do  not 
intercept  more  than  ten  times  as  much  of  the  sun's  radia- 
tion as  the  earth  does,  yet  the  latter  grasps  only  a  paltry 
1-2,000,000,000  of  it;  the  rest  being  uselessly  dissipated 
in  the  depths  of  empty  space,  and  to  all  appearance  lost 
forever.  What  human  spendthrift  ever  so  lax  and 
abandoned  as  to  squander  at  the  rate  of  $200,000,000  for 
a  single  dollar's  worth !  Nor  is  the  sun  the  only  celestial 
profligate,  for  the  stars,  one  and  all,  vie  with  him  in  these 
excesses.  Compare  with  this  state  of  facts  what  Sir 
Robert  Ball  says  (Story  of  the  Heavens,  p.  579)  to  the 
effect  that  were  the  sun  composed  of  the  best  of  coal,  and 
this  burned  in  pure  oxygen,  it  would  burn  itself  out  in  less 
than  6,000  years;  and  that  passage  from  Doctor  New- 
comb,  previously  quoted,  in  which  he  says,  that  were  the 
sun  merely  losing  energy  like  an  ordinary  hot  body  cool- 
ing off,  it  would  be  so  cooled  off  in  the  course  of  3,000  or 
4,000  years  as  no  longer  to  radiate  much  heat ! 

There  is  every  reason  to  believe,  from  spectrosopy 
as  well  as  analogy,  that  the  sun  is  composed  of  the  same 
materials  as  the  earth,  and  much  in  the  same  proportion ; 
but,  strange  to  relate,  the  former's  density  is  only  one- 
fourth  as  great,  despite  the  circumstance  that  his  integral 
attraction  is  nearly  thirty  times  greater.  By  the  logic 
of  current  theories  he  should  have  a  diameter  of  less  than 


THE  SUN  233 


half  the  size.  Why,  then,  is  he  so  distended?  Doctor 
See  has  estimated  the  superincumbent  pressure  at  a 
depth  of  one-tenth  the  sun's  radius  at  21,000,000  atmos- 
pheres, and  the  pressure  at  his  center  should  be  at  least 
100,000,000  atmospheres.  What,  then,  is  the  physical 
state  of  his  central  substances ! 

One  of  the  most  peculiar  things  about  the  sun  is  the 
manner  of  his  rotation  on  his  axis.  Carrington  and 
Spoerer,  noted  observers  of  the  sun  showed : 

1.  That  the  sun  rotates  around  an  axis  inclined 
about  7°  to  the  plane  of  the  ecliptic,  and  so  that  the  axis 
points  midway  between  the  polar  star  and  Vega  to  a  posi- 
tion in  right  ascension  18  h.  44  m.  and  decimation  64°. 

2.  At  the  solar  equator  the  rotation  occurs  in  about 
25  days. 

3.  The  period  of  one  complete  rotation  increases  on 
either  side  of  the  equator  equally,  and  is  about  27-yi  days 
at  45°  north  or  south  solar  latitude. 

As  to  the  high  degree  of  the  roundness  of  the  solar 
disc  this  quotation  from  Doctor  Abbot  will  show  (The 
Sun,  p.  26) : 

Poor  has  lately  maintained  that  observations  indicate  that 
the  sun's  equatorial  and  polar  diameters  vary  relatively  as  much 
as  o.i"  during  a  sun-spot  cycle  of  eleven  years.  According  to 
him,  the  equatorial  diameter  is  the  larger  at  sun-spot  maximum, 
and  the  polar  diameter  the  larger  at  sun-spot  minimum.  Am- 
bronn,  however,  denies  that  this  is  supported  by  the  observations, 
and  Moulton  opposes  so  large  a  variation  on  theoretical  grounds. 

That  such  phenomena  as  sun-spots  exist  has  been 
known  for  more  than  four  centuries.  These  spots  are 
not  always  visible,  but  come  and  go  in  cyclical  periods, 
increasing  from  a  state  of  almost  complete  absence  for 
(according  to  Newcomb)  4.62  years  and  then  decreasing 
for  a  further  space  of  6.51  years — making  up  a  total 
period  of  11.13  years.  It  must  be  noted,  however,  that 
11.13  years  is  only  the  mean  interval,  the  individual 
periods  ranging  between  7.3  and  17.1  years.  Young  has 
described  the  formation  and  life  history  of  sun-spots  in 
these  words : 


234  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

There  is  no  regular  process  for  the  formation  of  a  spot. 
Sometimes  it  is  gradual,  requiring  days  or  even  weeks  for  its 
full  development,  and  sometimes  a  single  day  suffices.  Gener- 
ally, for  some  time  before  the  appearance  of  the  spot,  there  is 
an  evident  disturbance  of  the  solar  surface,  manifested  especially 
by  the  presence  of  numerous  and  brilliant  faculae,  among  which, 
"pores"  or  minute  black  dots  are  scattered.  These  enlarge,  and 
between  them  appear  grayish  patches,  apparently  caused  by  a 
dark  mass  lying  veiled  below  a  thin  layer  of  luminous  filaments. 
The  veil  grows  gradually  thinner,  and  vanishes,  giving  us  at  last 
the  completed  spot  with  its  perfect  penumbra.  The  "pores",  some 
of  them,  coalesce  with  the  principal  spot,  some  disappear,  and 
others  constitute  the  attendant  train.  When  the  spot  is  once  com- 
pletely formed,  it  assumes  usually  an  approximately  circular 
form,  and  remains  without  striking  change  until  its  dissolution. 
As  its  end  approaches,  the  surrounding  photosphere  seems  to 
crowd  in  upon  and  cover  and  overwhelm  the  penumbra.  Bridges 
of  light,  often  many  times  brighter  than  the  average  of  the  solar 
surface,  push  across  the  umbra,  the  arrangement  of  the  penumbra 
filaments  becomes  confused,  and,  as  Secchi  expresses  it,  the  lum- 
inous matter  of  the  photosphere  seems  to  tumble  pell-mell  into 
the  chasm,  which  disappears  and  leaves  a  disturbed  surface 
marked  with  faculae,  which  in  their  turn  subside  after  a  time. 
As  intimated  before,  however,  the  disturbance  is  not  unfrequently 
renewed  at  the  same  point  after  a  few  days,  and  a  fresh  spot  ap- 
pears just  where  the  old  one  was  overwhelmed. 

The  spots  usually  appear  not  singly,  but  in  groups — at  least, 
isolated  spots  of  any  size  are  less  common  than  groups.  Very 
often  a  large  spot  is  followed  upon  the  eastern  side  by  a  train  of 
smaller  ones;  many  of  which,  in  such  a  case,  are  apt  to  be  very 
imperfect  in  structure,  sometimes  showing  no  umbra  at  all,  often 
having  a  penumbra  only  upon  one  side,  and  usually  irregular  in 
form.  It  is  noticeable,  also,  that  in  such  cases,  when  any  con- 
siderable change  of  form  or  structure  shows  itself  in  the  prin- 
cipal spot  of  a  group,  it  seems  to  rush  forward  (westward)  upon 
the  solar  surface,  leaving  its  attendants  trailing  behind.  When 
a  large  spot  divides  into  two  or  more,  as  often  happens,  the  parts 
usually  seem  to  repel  each  other  and  fly  asunder  with  great  ve- 
locity—great, that  is,  if  reckoned  in  miles  per  hour,  though,  of 
course,  to  a  telescopic  observer  the  motion  is  very  slow,  since  one 
can  only  barely  see  upon  the  sun's  surface  a  change  of  place 
amounting  to  two  hundred  miles,  even  with  a  very  high  magnify- 
ing power.  Velocities  of  three  or  four  hundred  miles  an  hour  are 
usual,  and  velocities  of  one  thousand  miles,  and  even  more,  are 
by  no  means  exceptional. 

The  average  life  of  a  sun-spot  may  be  taken  as  two  or  three 
months;  the  longest  yet  on  record  is  that  of  a  spot  observed  in 


THE  SUN  235 


1840  and  1841,  which  lasted  eighteen  months.  There  are  cases, 
however,  where  the  disappearance  of  a  spot  is  very  soon  followed 
by  the  appearance  of  another  at  the  same  point,  and  sometimes 
this  alternate  disappearance  and  reappearance  is  several  times  re- 
peated. While  some  spots  are  thus  long-lived,  others,  however, 
endure  only  for  a  day  or  two,  and  sometimes  only  for  a  few  hours. 

As  to  the  causes  of  sun-spots  Doctor  Abbot  says 
(The  Sun,  p.  188) : 

The  causes  which  produce  sun-spots,  being  as  yet  doubtful, 
or  perhaps  it  is  better  to  say  entirely  unknown,  the  causes  of  their 
periodicity  and  of  the  irregularity  of  the  periods  are,  of  course, 
also  unknown.  Attempts  have  been  made  to  connect  the  period 
with  the  times  of  revolution  of  the  planets,  and,  indeed,  the  mean 
length  of  the  sun-spot  period  is  not  far  from  the  period  of  the 
revolution  of  Jupiter  (n.86  years).  No  satisfactory  case  for  a 
connection  between  these  phenomena  is  yet  made  out. 

During  his  total  eclipses  the  sun  is  seen  to  be  sur- 
rounded by  a  pale  luminous  veil,  called  the  corona,  which 
during  sun-spot  periods  is  fairly  regular  all  around,  but 
in  the  quiescent  periods  is  confined  to  his  equatorial 
regions.  It  has  been  remarked  of  the  corona,  as  matters 
requiring  explanation;  first,  that  it  appears  to  partake 
of  the  uniformity  of  the  sun's  rotation,  and,  second,  that 
comets  which  have  been  observed  to  pass  through  it  suf- 
fered no  retardation. 

The  chromosphere  is  a  layer  of  incandescent  gases 
having  a  distinctly  reddish  tint,  and  comes  next  below  the 
corona ;  but  whereas  the  latter  is  never  observable  except 
during  total  eclipses,  the  former  can  be  seen  at  any  time 
with  the  aid  of  telescope  and  spectroscope  combined.  Hy- 
drogen is  its  chief  component. 

The  so-called  prominences  or  protuberances  are  up- 
ward projections  in  the  chromosphere,  but  exist  only 
temporarily.  They  are  of  two  kinds,  eruptive,  which 
arise  from  some  violent  explosive  action,  and  quiescent, 
which  assume  graceful  tree-like  forms  and  seem  rather  to 
evolve  than  spring. 

Next  beneath  the  chromosphere  comes  the  reversing 
layer,  relatively  dark,  of  uncertain  depth,  and  containing 
the  cooler  gases  which  are  responsible  for  the  Fraunhof er 
lines  in  the  solar  spectrum 


236 FBOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

And,  finally,  the  shell  or  layer  that  will  engage  our 
attention  here  most,  and  which  holds  within  it  the  key  to 
them  all — the  photosphere. 

We  see,  then,  from  the  premises,  that  the  sun  pre- 
sents not  one  only  but  a  complexity  of  enigmas,  all  of 
which  must  be  solved  consistently  with  each  other.  His 
longevity;  his  occasional  lapses  and  recoveries;  the  in- 
tensity of  his  light  and  heat;  his  density;  his  eruptive 
character;  his  sun-spots;  their  periodicity;  his  corona; 
its  unresistingness ;  his  absence  of  oblateness;  his  axial 
rotation  per  se;  the  cause  of  his  equatorial  acceleration ; 
his  share  in  the  genesis  of  his  system ;  his  beginning  and 
his  destiny;  his  dynamical  relationship  to  the  stars  in 
general ;  his  relationship  to  comets  and  meteors ;  his  path 
in  space;  the  source  of  his  magnetism;  his  connection 
with  such  terrestrial  phenomena  as  earthquakes,  elec- 
trical storms,  climatic  reversals,  and  the  like — all  these 
we  shall  treat  of  in  detail  and  prove  them  intimately  and 
causally  interdependent. 

SOLUTION  OF  THE  SOLAR  PROBLEMS 

One  of  the  many  serious  objections  to  the  Nebular 
Hypothesis  is  the  fact  that  the  residual  mass,  to  wit,  the 
sun,  does  not  revolve  on  its  axis  with  anything  like  the 
velocity  demanded  of  it.  According  to  Kepler's  third 
law,  this  velocity  should  be  at  least  200  times  more  rapid 
than  it  is  in  nature.  Furthermore,  according  to  La- 
place's idea,  the  entire  solar  body  should  revolve  as  a 
rigid  solid,  notwithstanding  the  mobility  of  its  component 
materials ;  whereas  there  is  noted  a  decided  acceleration 
of  the  equatorial  regions,  amounting  to  as  much  as  ten 
per  centum  over  what  it  is  in  the  middle  latitudes.  At- 
tempts have  been  made  by  both  Chamberlin  and  See  to 
account  for  this  phenomenon;  the  former  by  supposing 
that  his  ancestral  sun  may  have  had  a  different  direction 
of  axial  rotation  prior  to  its  encounter  with  the  strange 
star,  and  that  both  this  old  and  the  new  rotation  imposed 
by  the  encounter  persist  together ;  while  the  latter  attri- 
butes the  phenomenon  to  the  infall  of  meteoric  matter. 


THE  SUN  237 


The  explanation  that  I  submit  is  this:  Under  the 
principle  of  equilibrium  as  hereinbefore  expounded,  the 
sun  is  the  king-pin  of  the  self -balancing,  rotating  machine 
known  as  the  solar  system.  As  a  member  of  that  system, 
he  is  obliged  to  aid  in  this  balancing  process  to  the  extent 
imposed  upon  him  by  Nature.  Between  him  and  the 
planets,  however,  there  is  this  fundamental  distinction, 
namely,  that  whereas  the  planets  have  but  one  way  open 
to  them — orbital  movement — whereby  they  can  comply 
with  the  equilibristic  law,  the  sun,  being  in  the  very  center 
and  astride  the  fulcrum,  has  two  ways,  to  wit;  first,  by 
axial  rotation  and,  secondly,  by  oscillating  or  "see-saw- 
ing" to  and  fro  across  the  fulcral  point.  Now,  we  all 
know  that  however  complex  and  multidudinous  her  oper- 
ations, Nature  never  forgets  herself  or  becomes  confused, 
but  carries  all  her  processes  along  automatically  and  con- 
currently in  perfect  harmony.  Accordingly,  the  sun  does 
not  choose  either  of  the  balancing  methods  open  to  him 
to  the  total  exclusion  of  the  other,  but  pursues  both  of 
them  consistently.  Is  it  not  obvious,  then,  that,  on  this 
theory,  the  equatorial  rim  of  the  sun  being  farthest  from 
the  center  should  partake  more  of  the  orbital  nature  of 
movement,  while  the  more  central  parts,  being  closer  to 
the  fulcrum,  should  seek  the  more  direct  course  of 
shuttling?  Of  course,  were  the  sun  a  rigid  solid,  he  would 
necessarily  rotate  as  a  whole ;  but  he  is  far  from  answer- 
ing this  description,  being,  on  the  contrary,  fluid  through- 
out, so  that  all  his  parts  are  measurably  free  to  follow 
their  respective  equilibristic  impulses. 

Pursuing  this  train  of  reasoning  further,  let  us  con- 
ceive the  sun  severed  in  half  on  the  line  of  his  equator 
and  then  study  his  internal  evolutions,  fixing  our  atten- 
tion now,  not  on  his  structure,  which  will  be  specially 
treated  later,  but  on  the  torsional  stresses  that  intesti- 
nally  afflict  him.  To  aid  in  clarifying  the  explanation, 
let  us  assume  the  section  thus  presented  to  view  to  con- 
sist, from  center  to  circumference,  of  many  concentric 
layers ;  then  would  all  of  these  layers  possess  some  veloc- 
ity of  rotation  about  the  sun's  axis,  and  in  the  same 
sense.  However,  not  one  of  these  would  rotate  nni- 


238  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

formly  with  its  neighbor  on  either  side,  but  each  would 
travel  a  shade  faster  than  the  adjacent  inner  layer  and  a 
little  slower  than  the  adjacent  outer  layer ;  producing  by 
this  process  an  enormous  amount  of  friction.  It  is  to 
this  friction  that  I  attribute  the  ELECTRICAL  cmd  magnetic 
qualities  of  the  sun. 

While  thus  we  have  the  solar  interior  exposed  to 
view,  let  me  utilize  the  occasion  by  pointing  out  several 
other  peculiarities  in  the  sun's  structure.  .  One  of  these 
concerns  the  distribution  of  Ms  density.  Granting  that 
the  chemical  constitution  of  the  sun,  qualitatively  and 
proportionally,  is  identically  the  same  as  the  earth's  (as 
we  have  good  grounds  for  assuming)  and  bearing  in  mind 
that  the  advantage  of  self-compressional  power  lies  over- 
whelmingly in  his  favor,  why  is  it  that  his  density  instead 
of  being  decidedly  greater  than  that  of  our  earth  is  only 
a  quarter  of  hers?  It  is  all  well  enough  to  say  that  the 
difference  is  due  to  the  patent  fact  that  the  sun  is  vastly 
hotter  than  our  planet,  that  the  application  of  heat  alters 
the  state  of  substances  from  solid  to  liquid  and  thence 
from  liquid  to  vapor,  or  gas,  and  that  in  each  of  these 
several  states  the  volume  of  the  given  substance  is 
greatly  altered;  but  all  this  is  only  empirical,  and  not 
enough.  Though  solids  and  liquids  do  indeed  expand 
and  contract  with  heat,  they  do  so  only  within  very  nar- 
row limits ;  but  gases  derived  from  them  seem  to  possess 
incredible  expansive  capabilities.  Clearly,  the  distension 
of  the  sun  cannot  be  accounted  for  on  the  score  of  ex- 
panded solids  or  liquids  as  such,  but  must  seek  its  explan- 
ation solely  in  the  buoyancy  of  gases.  But  here  we  meet 
with  another  difficulty ;  the  sun,  though  very  much  lighter, 
bulk  for  bulk,  than  the  kernel  of  the  earth,  is  still  1.4 
times  heavier  than  water;  how,  then,  could  the  gases  ex- 
ist as  gases  in  a  space  less  than  their  oivn  liquids  would 
require?  Besides,  wTho  can  guarantee  that  a  ball  of  gas 
the  size  of  the  sun,  or  for  that  matter  a  gaseous  ball  of 
any  size,  unconfined,  will  preserve  its  identity  and  remain 
intact  and  globular? 

Doctor  Abbot  assumes  that  the  sun  is  entirely 
gaseous,  but  refrains  from  discussing  the  manifest  ob- 


THE  SUN  239 


jections  to  that  assumption.  It  is  a  fact  known  and  com- 
mented on  by  every  solar  observer,  that  at  least  the 
larger  sun-spots  preserve  their  identity,  and  even  their 
outline,  for  weeks  and  sometimes  months  on  end,  and  it 
is  authentically  recorded  that  the  great  spot  of  1840-1841 
lasted  as  much  as  eighteen  months.  How  Doctor  Abbot 
and  other  Doubting  Thomases,  beholding  these  wounds 
in  the  sun's  side,  can  perversely  persist  in  declaring  him 
not  matter,  but  matter's  ghost,  is  beyond  my  fathoming. 

Many  scientists — probably  the  majority  of  them — 
appear  to  believe  in  a  fourth  state  of  matter,  as  some 
mathematicians  do  in  a  fourth  dimension.  The  reason 
for  this  hypothesis  lies  in  their  endeavor  to  specify  an 
effect  for  the  enormous  pressures  brought  to  bear  on  the 
central  parts  of  such  immense  bodies  as  the  earth,  Jupi- 
ter and  the  sun.  Some  have  gone  so  far  as  to  invent  a 
description  of  this  supposititious  state — just  as  they 
dogmatize  about  the  nature  of  the  ether — and  picture  it 
as  of  a  "waxy"  consistency.  A  little  reflection  ought  to 
convince  these  philosophers,  not  only  of  the  unlikelihood 
of  such  an  anomalous  state  of  matter  existing,  but  also 
of  its  undesirability  from  the  standpoint  of  theory.  The 
mystery  here  demanding  solution  is  the  sun's  lack  of 
density,  and  this  mystery  is  only  rendered  altogether  im- 
penetrable by  imagining  his  figure  packed  solidly  to  the 
core. 

Mature  deliberation  on  the  problem  of  the  solar 
density  can  lead  to  but  one  satisfying  conclusion,  a  con- 
clusion, too,  that  leads  us  by  a  well-blazed  path  to  the 
clearing-house  of  practically  all  the  present  enigmas  of 
the  sun  and  stars. 

To  begin  with,  physicists  have  demonstrated  by 
practical  experiments  that  there  is  what  they  call  a 
critical  point  in  gases;  signifying  that,  given  a  certain 
temperature  (varying,  of  course,  with  the  substance),  no 
application  of  pressure,  however  great,  that  may  be 
brought  to  bear  will  avail  to  reduce  the  gas  to  the  form  of 
a  solid  or  liquid.  Now,  if  this  generalization  is  valid, 
then  it  necessarily  follows  that  the  heart  of  the  sun  is 
gaseous,  since  there  the  temperatures  prevailing  are 


240  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

demonstrdbly  above  the  critical  point  of  every  'known 
chemical  element.  But  though  the  interior  of  the  sun  is 
gaseous,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  whole  globe  is.  On 
the  contrary,  when  we  consider  his  high  internal  tempera- 
tures, and  his  high  density  as  compared  with  what  he 
ought  to  possess  were  he  in  a  solely  gaseous  state,  we 
soon  come  to  realize  that  the  sun  can  be  nothing  else  than 
an  enormous  inflated  solid  or  liquid  shelL  Not  only  does 
this  conclusion  obviate  the  postulation  of  a  chimerical 
fourth  state  of  matter,  and  account  for  the  persistence  of 
sun-spot  identity  and  the  enigmatic  low  density  of  the 
sun,  stars  and  planets,  but,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  it 
also  supplies  the  clue  to  practically  every  mystery  of 
star-life  and  star-behavior  from  the  moment  the  star 
crystallizes  out  of  the  nebular  dust  until  it  dissolves  into 
nebular  dust  again. 

After  all,  what  is  this  doctrine  of  the  critical  point 
except  a  general  recognition  of  the  explosibility  of  all 
substances  by  percussion,  or  crushing?  Dynamite  may 
be  detonated  by  raising  its  temperature,  by  a  sudden 
blow,  by  friction,  or  by  strong  pressure.  So  may  any  and 
every  other  substance.  "Give  me,"  said  Archimedes, 
"a  lever  long  enough  and  I  will  move  the  earth ",  and  so 
I  say,  give  me  a  press  powerful  enough  and  I  will  deton- 
ate any  known  substance,  whatever  be  its  temperature, 
from  gunpowder  to  granite.  Apropos  of  this  statement 
let  me  quote  from  the  pen  of  that  world-wide  authority, 
J.  W.  Gregory,  Professor  of  Geology  at  the  University 
of  Glasgow  (Geology  of  To-day,  p.  157) : 

The  ordinary  rocks  on  the  earth's  surface  are  crushed  into 
powder  when  subject  to  a  weight  of  somewhere  between  two  and 
thirty  tons  to  the  square  inch.  Hence  if  a  column  of  ordinary 
rocks  were  built  from  3  to  5  miles  high,  the  base  would  be  crushed 
by  the  weight  of  the  upper  part.  Rocks  are  often  found  in  such 
a  condition  of  strain  that  they  fly  to  pieces  when  exposed  on  one 
side  in  a  deep  mine.  In  some  mining  fields  the  rocks  cut  through 
in  driving  a  mine  tunnel  suddenly  explode  owing  to  the  strain  of 
the  overlying  weight,  just  as  a  spring  may  snap  when  overloaded. 
Fragments  are  thrown  from  the  rock  face  in  'rock  blasts',  and 
have  caused  many  fatal  accidents. 


THE  SUN  241 


This  detonation  of  rocks  (and  other  materials  as 
well,  including  metals)  is  no  more  than  should  be  philo- 
sophically expected.  That  the  three  states  of  matter, 
solid,  liquid  and  gaseous,  must  folloiv  each  other  m  a 
cycle  at  peril  of  destroying  Nature's  very  life  seems  all 
but  axiomatic.  Were  the  fact  otherwise,  matter,  once 
caught  in  the  trap  of  gravitation  and  held  down  by  super- 
incumbent layers,  would  become  perpetually  staled  and 
nullified ;  which  is  repugnant  to  sound  reason.  We  know 
from  experience  that  the  heavier  the  pressure  brought  to 
bear,  the  less  space  does  the  compressed  substance  oc- 
cupy. Were  this  rule  to  apply  indefinitely,  it  would 
mean  nothing  less  than  the  final  extinction  of  matter  by 
shrinkage  into  no  space  at  all.  Where  does  this  trend 
cease  and  the  recovery  begin  f  How  does  Nature  restore 
the  balance?  What  logical  thing  remains  for  the  tor- 
tured molecules  to  do,  but  to  rebel  and  bombard  the  walls 
of  their  prison  till  these  yield  as  to  an  acid  and  vouchsafe 
escape! 

Heretofore  it  has  always  been  assumed  as  quite  a 
matter  of  course  that  matter  thus  gravitationally  en- 
trapped in  the  interior  of  cosmic  bodies  is  forever 
rendered  subservient  to  the  ever  accumulating  material 
overhead.  It  seems  never  to  have  suggested  itself  to  the 
minds  of  the  physicists  that  the  burdened  materials  could 
ever  find  a  way  of  release.  Yet  what  deduction  could  be 
more  simple  than  that,  given  a  sufficient  body  of  rock 
ripe  for  exploding,  it  would  not  need  to  await  emancipa- 
tion from  the  tardy  hand  of  man,  but,  seeking  the  path  of 
least  resistance,  would  tear  its  own  way,  here  or  there, 
through  to  the  surface?  It  is  in  this  essentially  ex- 
plosible  nature  of  matter,  under  varying  pressures,  that 
I  find  the  chief  cause  of  volcanic  eruptions  and  earth- 
quakes, and  the  solar  eruptions. 

Now,  explosiveness  is  characterized  by  the  abrupt- 
ness of  its  happening.  When  the  critical  condition  with- 
in the  bowels  of  the  earth  is  well  advanced,  but  not  yet 
altogether  ripe  for  a  spontaneous  letting  go,  the  impend- 
ing catastrophe  may  be  precipitated  by  some  foreign 
agency,  as,  for  example,  by  a  great  solar  eruption — how 


242  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

will  be  explained  later.  The  point  to  be  impressed  in  this 
place  is,  that  the  exploding  crisis  is  not  indefinitely  de- 
ferable, and  that,  sooner  or  later,  the  explosive  tendency 
within  the  sphere  catches  up  to  and  finally  overwhelms 
the  repressive  forces.  The  effect  of  these  belchings  out 
of  the  earth's  interior  is  to  relieve  the  distension  of  her 
crust  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  orifices  of  escape  and 
allow  subsidence  to  the  normal  level;  following  which 
event  the  gases  go  on  accumulating  again,  until  the  like 
action  is  repeated — a  sort  of  earth-breathing,  one  might 
say.  This  alternate  subsidence  and  elevation  of  the 
earth's  crust  is  a  long-standing  scientific  curiosity,  and 
has  heretofore  been  sought  to  be  explained  by  the  so- 
called  principle  of  Isostasy;  meaning,  that  the  various 
areas  of  the  earth's  crust  are  equilibrated  against  each 
other.  That  this  principle  of  isostasy  is  fundamentally 
sound,  it  seems  to  me,  should  go  without  saying ;  only  it 
requires  to  be  treated,  not  so  much  as  a  prime  cause  as  a 
concomitant  one  of  minor  potency. 

THE  ANATOMY  or  THE  SUN 

Returning  again  to  the  sun,  my  conception  of  him  is 
that  of  an  enormous  bounding  shell  of  molten  matter  en- 
closing and  mightily  compressing  an  inner  spherical 
chamber  of  superheated  gases,  whose  buoyancy,  in  turn, 
supports  the  shell.  In  short,  the  sun  is,  in  principle,  con- 
structed on  the  order  of  the  soap-bubble,  only  his  walls 
are  proportionally  far  thicker. — How  thick! 

It  can  be  shown  by  a  very  simple  calculation,  based 
on  the  rule  that  the  volumes  of  spheres  are  to  each  other 
as  the  cubes  of  their  diameters,  that  were  the  third-of-a- 
million  earths  that  compose  the  sun  crowded,  in  their 
solid  state,  into  his  outer  part,  they  would  make  a  shell 
about  47,000  miles  thick,  equivalent  to  one-fourth  his 
present  volume.  Of  course  this  cannot  be  the  case 
actually,  seeing  that  these  counterparts  of  our  earth,  as 
we  are  assuming  them  to  be,  are  largely  composed  of  sub- 
stances too  volatile  to  be  able  to  resist  the  high  solar  tem- 
peratures. Moreover,  we  must  allow  for  the  weight  of 


THE  SUN  243 


the  gases  occupying  the  central  reservoir,  and  for  the 
weight,  also,  of  the  solar  atmosphere.  It  is  not  altogether 
guesswork  if  we  allow  for  these  claims  about  one-half  the 
shell's  thickness,  reducing  the  latter  to,  say,  25,000  miles, 
in  round  numbers. 

.A  few  peculiarities  of  this  shell  demand  attention. 
One  of  these  has  to  do  with  the  observed  inclination  of 
the  sun 's  axis,  which  prima  facie  should,  according  to  my 
theory  of  the  stellar  resultant  and  systemal  equilibrium, 
parallel  the  axis  of  the  earth.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  how- 
ever, the  solar  axis  is  inclined,  not  23-*^°,  but  only  7°,  to 
the  plane  of  the  ecliptic.  What  explanation  can  there 
possibly  be  for  this  apparently  fatal  discrepancy? 

My  answer  is  this:  that  were  the  sun  rigid  to  the 
same  degree  as  the  earth,  he  would  undoubtedly,  like 
Mars,  lean  as  does  the  earth,  but  not  being  rigid,  he 
ceases  ipso  facto  to  be  a  trustworthy  criterion  of  the 
main  question.  Prior  to  the  ocular  discovery  of  the  sun's 
equatorial  acceleration,  and  that  from  his  middle  lati- 
tudes to  his  equator  this  acceleration  is  gradual  and  con- 
tinuous, and  even  reducible  to  a  formula,  what  astrono- 
mer would  have  supposed  such  a  thing  physically  possi- 
ble ?  When,  therefore,  I  say,  as  I  now  do,  that  the  solar 
shell  consists  of  many  plies,  and  that  each  ply  has  its  own 
velocity  of  rotation  and  its  own  PLANE  of  rotation,  it  may 
sound  quite  as  incredible  to  the  same  ears.  According  to 
my  interpretation,  the  innermost  ply  of  the  solar  shell 
revolves  about  an  axis  nearly,  or  quite,  parallel  with  the 
axis  of  the  earth,  while  his  outermost  envelope,  at  the 
equator,  revolves  about  one  that  nearly  approximates  a 
perpendicular  to  the  plane  of  the  planetary  orbits. 

A  second  peculiarity  about  the  sun  that  is  not  true  of 
the  earth  is,  that  the  former  exhibits  no  oblateness  of 
figure  whatsoever,  but  presents  at  all  times  a  sensibly  cir- 
cular disc.  Were  the  sun  as  rigid  as  the  earth,  he  would 
be  flattened  at  his  poles,  but,  because  of  his  inflation,  his 
rotundity  is  being  perpetually  retrimmed.  The  ball  of 
our  planet  lacks  elasticity  and,  as  in  the  case  of  a  ball  of 
putty,  its  settling  and  flattening  become  more  and  more 
confirmed  as  time  goes  on.  Were  a  close  physical  exami- 


244  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

nation  of  the  sun  humanly  possible,  it  would  be  found 
that  the  northern  end,  or  base,  of  his  shell  is  appreciably 
thicker  and  heavier  than  its  southern,  but  this  in  no  way 
affects  his  external  symmetry,  inasmuch  as  his  interior 
buoyancy  maintains  his  shell  exactly  centered  upon  his 
center  of  mass. 

THE  SOLAR  PROCESS 

Without  pausing  at  this  juncture  to  point  out  the 
source  of  the  sun's  heat,  save  to  assert  that  it  is  a  func- 
tion of  his  mass,  and  judging  him  simply  by  analogy  with 
the  earth,  whose  temperature  increases  with  the  depth, 
we  are  justified  in  assuming  that  Ms  temperature,  too, 
rises  steadily  from  his  photosphere  to  his  center.  This 
naturally  prompts  the  query  as  to  what  effect  this  con- 
dition has  upon  the  character  of  the  shell 's  chemical  com- 
position at  the  various  depths.  A  preliminary  illustra- 
tion may  assist  in  clarifying  the  answer : 

Suppose  you  were  handed  a  mixed  pailful  of  finely 
pulverized,  insoluble  materials  known  to  contain  equal 
parts  of  ten  different  minerals,  all  evenly  graded  in  an 
ascending  scale  according  to  specific  gravity ;  how  would 
you  go  about  the  task  of  separating  them?  Without 
bothering  to  cast  about  in  our  minds  for  an  artificial  way, 
let  us  put  the  burden  on  Nature  and  see  how  she  would  do 
it.  We  will  search  for  a  very  deep  and  narrow  well  and, 
finding  it,  we  will  dump  on  its  surface,  as  abruptly  but  as 
gently  as  possible,  the  entire  contents  of  the  pail,  then 
with  the  eye  of  imagination,  to  which  all  things  are  trans- 
parent, watch  the  result.  We  will  suppose,  further,  that 
the  water  in  the  well  is  just  10  fathoms  deep.  Clearly, 
there  would  ensue  an  interesting  race  between  the  ten 
substances  for  the  bottom,  in  which  contest  the  test  of 
fitness  would,  of  course,  be  that  of  weight,  or  more  tech- 
nically speaking,  specific  gravity;  and  when  the  affair 
has  been  concluded  we  shall  find,  piled  up  on  the  bottom, 
a  column  of  ten  thin  layers  ranged  in  the  order  of  their 
heaviness.  But  what  of  the  status  of  the  race  at  its 
various  stages?  In  the  first  fathom,  beginning  at  the 


THE  SUN  245 


top,  we  shall  see  all  the  ten  minerals  inextricably  mingled, 
but  in  this  stretch  the  lightest  of  all  will  become  so  dis- 
tanced that  in  the  second  fathom  we  shall  be  able  to  dis- 
tinguish but  nine  sorts,  in  the  third  but  eight,  and  so  on 
until  the  heaviest  particles  begin  to  touch  bottom. 

Now,  something  of  this  sort  occurs  in  the  shell  of  the 
sun,  except  that  here  the  tests  of  fitness  are  two  instead 
of  only  one,  and  these  two  are,  first,  specific  gravity 
(perhaps  it  were  more  accurate  in  this  case  to  say  atomic 
weight),  and,  second,  refractoriness,  or  resistance  to  vol- 
atilization. Imagine  now,  if  you  please,  the  earth 
ground  into  fine  powder  and  sprinkled  over  a  limited  area 
of  the  solar  surface,  and  for  the  sake  of  simplicity  sup- 
pose, further,  this  powder  to  be  classifiable  into  ten  dis- 
tinct grades,  as  in  our  previous  illustration,  and,  lastly, 
suppose  the  solar  shell  to  be  likewise  differentiated  into 
ten  successive  strata  with  temperatures  progressing 
downwardly.  Is  it  not  obvious,  now,  that  there  would 
here  ensue  a  process  of  distillation,  a  sort  of  refining  or 
smelting  process,  in  which  the  diverse  materials  would, 
in  the  order  of  their  volatility,  be  successively  driven  off 
as  they  sank  (by  reason  of  their  avoirdupois)  into  lower 
and  lower  levels  of  higher  and  still  higher  temperatures? 
It  follows,  then,  as  a  matter  of  deduction,  that  the  lining 
of  the  central  chamber  of  the  sun,  or  shall  we  say  its  face- 
wall,  is  almost,  if  not  quite,  homogeneous  and  composed 
of  a  substance  all  but  perfectly  refractory,  and  that 
thence  on  outward  the  layers  gain  steadily  in  heterogen- 
ity  until  we  reach  the  surface. 

In  this  process  we  see  that  the  sun  is  something  more 
than  a  dispenser  of  light  and  heat ;  he  is  also  a  smelter  of 
minerals,  providing  man  with  the  ores,  which  may  not 
inaptly  be  termed  cosmic  pig  metal.  How  these  ma- 
terials reach  the  earth  we  shall  presently  discover;  for 
that  they  do,  and  that  they  have  reached  her  in  compara- 
tively recent  times  is  sufficiently  attested,  not  only  by  the 
fact  that  these  heavy  ores  are  to  be  found  here  in  "  veins  " 
and  ' '  pockets ' ',  but  that  they  are  to  be  found  on  the  sur- 
face. Had  the  earth  been  originally  her  present  size,  and 
molten,  the  heavier  materials  must  inevitably  all  have 


246  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

sunk  toward  her  center  and  only  froth  and  scum  re- 
mained to  blanket  her. 

Though  I  have  spoken  of  the  sun's  strata,  both  in 
discussing  his  differential  rotations  and  the  chemical  con- 
stitution of  his  shell,  and  shall  yet  continue  so  to  speak, 
yet  I  wish  the  reader  to  understand  that  there  are  no 
sharp  lines  of  demarcation  between  them,  but  that  the 
changes  up  and  down,  though  certain  and  pronounced, 
melt  imperceptibly  into  each  other.  The  reason  lies,  of 
course,  in  the  great  variety  of  the  natural  chemical  ele- 
ments and  compounds,  and  in  their  abundance  in  the 
solar  economy.  Assuming  that  the  graded  temperatures 
of  the  shell,  level  by  level,  are  invariable,  and  that  the 
pressures  are  equally  so,  it  follows  that  every  element 
and  compound  regularly  explodes  every  time  it  reaches 
its  particular  critical  depth.  Such  explosions  necessarily 
cause  eruptions  through  the  photosphere,  giving  rise  to 
jets,  geysers,  fountains,  or  prominences,  whichever  the 
reader  may  think  best  to  call  them.  In  proportion  to 
their  deep-seatedness  and  severity,  these  explosive  gases 
not  only  change  places  themselves,  but  they  carry  before 
them  in  their  outward  rush  great  quantities  of  debris 
from  the  intervening  layers  to  greater  or  less  heights 
beyond  the  photosphere,  whence,  being  normally  con- 
densed and  turned  back  by  the  cosmic  cold,  they  rain 
down  upon  the  photosphere  in  a  ceaseless  hail  of  slag 
and  cinder — only  to  begin  the  same  process  over  again. 

Briefly,  then,  the  solar  process  consists  in  the  con- 
tinuous explosive  conversion  of  the  sun's  interior  sub- 
stances into  gases  by  virtue  of  the  pressure  of  the  super- 
incumbent layers  falling  toward  his  center,  the  space 
allowing  for  such  fall  being  vacated  by  the  said  gases, 
which  rise  to  the  surface  upon  the  wings  of  their  own 
explosive  force,  there  render  up  their  heat,  condense,  and 
regain  their  original  energy  of  position  as  part  of  the 
great  solar  press — an  unending  cycle  of  mechanical  com- 
bustion and  gravitational  resynthesis. 

This  cyclical  process  of  converting  gravity  into  heat 
and  heat  into  gravity  again,  finds  a  remarkable  parallel 
in  the  terrestrial  transformation  of  water  into  vapor, 


THE  SUN  247 


rain  and  ocean,  of  which  were  one  link  unknown  it  would 
be  infinitely  more  difficult  to  divine.  In  the  solar  heat- 
generating  cycle,  the  descending  jets,  or  geysers,  answer 
to  our  rain,  perpetually  flooding  the  whole  of  the  sun's 
surface,  and  falling,  with  the  regular  continuity  of  the 
Amazon,  toward  his  interior,  there  to  suffer  "evapora- 
tion" by  his  self-pressure  instead  of  by  his  rays  and 
thence  to  rise  again  in  fountains  of  life-giving  warmth. 

It  is  plain  to  be  seen  that  the  shorter  the  distance 
that  a  substance  must  sink  before  reaching  its  critical 
level,  the  shorter  the  cycle  of  its  action  and  consequently 
the  more  frequent  its  periodical  eruptions.  On  the  other 
hand,  for  that  very  reason  these  superficial  eruptions 
are  proportionately  mild.  It  is  from  the  pinnacles  of 
these  jets — ever  freshly  new,  incandescent,  and  unen- 
crusted — that  we  derive  our  extraordinary  supply  of  light 
and  heat.  In  short,  they  pump  us  heat  and  light,  as  it 
were;  which  accounts  for  two  things;  first,  for  the 
puzzling  intensity  of  the  solar  radiations,  and,  secondly, 
for  the  keeping  measurably  cool,  by  their  "exhaust", 
the  magma  from  which  they  issue.  They  are  double- 
carriers,  as  it  were,  conveying  their  cargoes  of  heat  out 
into  the  cold  sky,  exchanging  there  their  cargoes  of  heat 
for  cargoes  of  "cold",  and  bearing  these  latter  back  for 
the  sun  to  expend  his  excess  energy  upon. 

The  so-called  "rice  grains"  of  the  sun  are  nothing 
more  or  less  than  the  geyser  pinnacles  above  mentioned. 
They  are  the  ephemeral  ebullitions  in  the  magma,  appear- 
ing and  disappearing  in  endless  repetition  and  profusion. 
Of  these  Professor  H.  H.  Turner  in  his  A  Voyage  in 
Space  (p.  214)  says : 

By  a  tragic  accident  he  [M.  Hansky,  a  Russian  astronomer] 
was  drowned,  and  no  one  else  has  paid  the  same  attention  to 
photographing  these  rice  grains  on  the  sun;  but  he  obtained  a 
sufficient  series  of  pictures  to  show  at  what  a  great  rate  they 
are  moving  about.  Even  in  a  few  seconds  the  pattern  becomes 
quite  differently  arranged,  as  you  can  see  by  comparing  one  of 
M.  Hansky's  pictures  with  another.  They  must  be  moving  at 
great  speed,  some  of  them  perhaps  at  100  miles  a  second  *  *  * 
The  whole  surface  of  the  sun  is  in  a  state  of  constant  turmoil. 


248  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

And  on  p.  244  he  adds : 

When  I  tried  these  different  ideas,  I  concluded  that  the 
particles  (in  the  corona)  were  behaving  as  a  fountain  behaves, 
being  both  shot  up  and  falling  down  again  *  *  *  My  conclusion  is 
that  there  are  a  large  number  of  solid  particles  in  the  corona,  be- 
cause there  is  a  great  deal  of  polarized  light;  and  other  astrono- 
mers have  found  the  same  thing. 

So  much  for  the  superficial  eruptions,  but  what  of 
those  more  deeply  seated!  The  cycles  of  these  are  natur- 
ally longer ;  all  the  more  severe  too,  for  that  very  reason. 
Late  researches  have  led  to  the  knowldge  that  the  "  solar 
constant ' '  is  not  so  constant  after  all,  but  varies  rhythmi- 
cally by  periods  of  five  days,  of  ten  days,  and  so  on,  prov- 
ing the  occurrence  of  fluctuations  in  the  sun  himself. 
All  of  these  variations  are  easily  accounted  for  by  postu- 
lating a  series  of  eruptive  levels,  each  with  its  own  char- 
acteristic interval  of  manifestation. 

THE  SUET-SPOTS 

One  of  the  periods  of  which  we  have  been  speaking 
is,  of  course,  that  of  the  sun-spots.  In  this  phenomenon 
we  have  an  example  of  sufficient  distinctness  and  legibil- 
ity to  enable  us,  by  a  close  study  of  available  data,  to 
determine  the  solar  level  from  which  it  emanates.  This 
is  not  exactly  an  easy  task,  for  the  reason  that,  as  before 
stated,  the  blast  carries  before  it  in  its  ascent  vast  quanti- 
ties of  miscellaneous  debris  from  all  of  the  superior 
layers  which  requires  to  be  differentiated  out.  The  test, 
of  course,  consists  in  discovering  which  is  the  most  re- 
fractory element  or  group  of  elements  most  conspicu- 
ously represented  in  the  pertinent  spectra;  and  a  good 
deal  also  depends  upon  the  age  of  the  spot  at  the  time 
the  spectra  are  obtained. 

Some  may  infer  that  I  mean  that  these  deep-seated 
blasts  occur  sporadically,  and  without  any  preliminary 
preparation  of  the  surface.  I  do  not  mean  this  especi- 
ally, though  I  admit  the  possibility  of  such  happenings. 
The  time  being  ripe  for  the  coming  event,  I  presuppose, 
rather,  a  series  of  eruptions,  from  the  top  layer  to  the 


THE  SUN  249 


next,  and  so  on,  opening  a  path  of  least  resistance  down 
to  the  lowest  layer  affected  in  each  individual  case. 
With  each  succeeding  deeper  detonation  the  original 
superficial  vent  is  widened  more  and  more  until  there 
yawns  at  last  a  well  thousands  of  miles  in  depth,  ripped 
through  from  below.  This  remains  open  until  the  inter- 
nal pressure  is  sufficiently  relieved,  and  then  ensues  a 
falling  and  filling  in  until  the  gaping  wound  is  complete- 
ly healed.  That  the  girth  of  the  sun  should  diminish 
slightly  as  a  result  of  these  belchings  is  self-evident,  but 
the  difference  is  too  small  to  have  been  measured,  though 
Professor  Poor,  it  seems,  has  detected  some  such  differ- 
ence. 

Owing  to  the  differential  rotations  within  the  solar 
body,  as  previously  described,  and  the  friction  caused 
thereby,  the  pent  up  gases  are  electrified  before  their  es- 
cape, and,  after  escape,  rising  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
miles  above  the  sun's  surface,  they  produce  and  perenni- 
ally keep  in  repair  the  coronal  veil  that  envelopes  him. 
'  '  There  is  a  cycle  of  changes ' ',  says  Doctor  Abbot, '  '  sup- 
posed to  be  identical  with  that  of  sun-spot  frequency. 
As  the  corona  can  be  observed  only  at  total  solar 
eclipses,  the  march  of  the  cycle  of  changes  is  as  yet  only 
imperfectly  known,  but  for  the  last  half  century  it  has 
been  observed  that  there  are  long  equatorial  coronal 
streamers  at  the  time  of  sun-spot  minimum  while  at  maxi- 
mum of  sun-spots  the  corona  extends  only  to  moderate 
distances  but  nearly  uniformly  in  all  directions  from  the 
sun".  A  comparison  of  the  photographs  he  gives  (The 
Sun,  pp.  132,  134)  will  show  that  at  sun-spot  maximum 
the  corona  is  very  much  more  dense  than  at  minimum, 
confirming  the  justice  of  my  assertion  that  it  is  the 
emanations  from  the  spots  that  renew  the  veil.  Hereto- 
fore the  Newtonians  have  shrunk  from  admitting  this 
very  natural  conclusion,  realizing  as  they  did  the  impos- 
sibility of  reconciling  a  materially  dense  corona  with  the 
non-retardation  of  the  comets  that  have  been  seen  to 
traverse  it. 

It  has  been  observed,  time  and  again,  that  solar  erup- 
tions on  a  grand  scale  are  usually  accompanied  by  mag- 


250  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

netic  disturbances  on  the  earth,  by  tidal  waves,  by  earth- 
quakes, or  by  all  of  them  together,  and  the  causal  connec- 
tion has  until  now  been  one  of  complete  mystery.  It  has, 
indeed,  been  suggested  that  the  sun  at  such  crises  is  ex- 
ceptionally charged  with  electricity  and  that  this  somhow 
finds  its  way  across  the  void ;  but  this  idea  is  recognized 
to  be  far-fetched  even  by  its  proponents.  The  true  ex- 
planation is  this : 

Some  sun-spots  have  been  observed  as  much  as  five 
times  as  wide  as  the  earth,  and  there  have  furthermore 
been  witnessed  from  time  to  time  solar  eruptions  upward 
of  200,000  miles  in  height,  with  initial  velocities  exceed- 
ing 100  miles  a  second.  Such  convulsions  as  these  nec- 
essarily portend  a  substantial  displacement  of  the  center 
of  mass  of  the  sun  and  ipso  facto  of  the  entire  solar 
system,  and  cause  perturbations  to  every  individual 
planet,  satellite  and  comet  within  the  latter,  including, 
of  course,  our  earth.  This  is  bound  to  be  the  case, 
whether  we  view  the  planetary  system  in  the  conven- 
tional light  of  Newtonian  astronomy  or  in  the  new  aspect 
of  an  equilibrating  unit.  To  make  use  of  a  homely 
simile,  the  sun  at  such  times  is  like  a  great  spider  in  the 
act  of  shaking  his  gravitational  web.  Now,  (to  change 
the  figure)  although  we,  the  passengers,  on  this  great 
ship  may  not  be  able  to  sense  these  perturbations  direct- 
ly, yet  the  earth  herself  does,  and  so  while  the  solar  con- 
vulsion lasts,  she  gently  wavers  in  her  orbit  and  sways 
upon  her  axis  in  rhythmical  sympathy  with  her  stricken 
lord.  The  inevitable  result  is  that  the  oceans  are  caused 
to  shake  profoundly  in  their  huge  basins,  producing  not 
only  tidal  waves,  but  also,  by  the  friction  on  their  beds, 
augmenting  the  supply  of  electricity  normally  furnished 
by  the  diurnal  tides.  The  effect  of  these  perturbations 
on  the  solid  parts  of  the  earth  is  sometimes,  though  per- 
haps not  usually,  accompanied  by  earthquakes.  The 
reason  for  this  is  not  that  the  perturbations  are  the  vera 
causa  of,  but  that  they  precipitate,  earthquakes  nearly 
ripe  for  spontaneous  manifestation,  much  as  the  slam- 
ming of  a  door  may  cause  the  glowing  coals  of  a  grate  fire 
to  collapse  when  near  the  point  of  doing  so  of  themselves. 


THE  SUN  251 


Knowing  as  we  do  by  ocular  evidence  of  the  habitual 
periodical  occurrence  on  the  sun  of  these  eruptions,  big 
and  little,  the  question  suggests  itself  whether  the  sun 
may  not  be  subject,  at  longer  intervals  than  we  possess 
records  of,  to  vastly  greater  convulsions.  A  phenomenon 
that  seems  to  lend  color  to  this  inference  is  that  of  "new 
stars ".  "These",  says  Doctor  W.  W.  Campbell,  "ap- 
pear with  great  suddenness  at  points  where  previously 
no  star  of  catalogue  brightness  (that  is,  as  bright  as  the 
ninth  magnitude)  was  known  to  exist,  and  occasionally, 
according  to  photographic  observations,  where  no  star  as 
bright  as  the  twelfth  magnitude  was  recorded.  They 
reach  maximum  brilliancy  in  a  few  days  or  a  few  weeks, 
pulsate  through  a  considerable  range  of  brightness  for  a 
few  additional  weeks,  and  thereafter  decline  more  or  less 
continously  until  they  become  comparatively  faint  stars. 
In  some  cases  they  assume  approximate  constancy  as 
faint  stars,  and  in  others  they  seem  to  go  beyond  the 
reach  of  telescopic  power,  and  later  become  visible  again 
as  faint  objects ".  What  is  thus  clearly  true  of  some 
stars  may  reasonably  be  true  of  others,  and  of  our  sun ; 
not  simply  once,  but  repeatedly. 

Just  such  cataclysms  as  these  have,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  occured  again  and  again  to  our  luminary  in  the  long 
geological  past ;  not  all  of  them,  of  course,  equally  severe, 
yet  comparably  so.  Violent  though  they  are,  however, 
they  are  far  from  being  total,  nor  should  it  be  inferred 
that  they  occur  at  regular  intervals  any  more  than  do  the 
sun-spots.  It  is  to  these  solar  backslidings  that  I  at- 
tribute the  alternation  of  genial-  and  ice  ages,  for  which 
scientists  have  so  long  been  groping  for  explanation  in 
vain;  and  to  them  do  I  also  attribute,  in  chief  measure, 
the  enormous  alterations  of  continental  levels  ushered 
in  with  the  glacial  epochs.  Obviously,  the  sudden  libera- 
tion of  a  great  store  of  high-temperature  gases  would 
greatly  reduce  the  sun's  radiation  for  a  long  time  to  fol- 
low, and  centuries  would  probably  pass  before  he  re- 
cuperated to  normal,  and  still  other  centuries  ere  he 
could  succeed  in  dissolving  away  the  glaciers  accumulated 
during  his  prolonged  lapse.  As  for  the  changes  of  level, 


252  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

these  may  easily  have  been  due  to  the  convulsive  shak- 
ings of  the  solar  web.  These  would,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  precipitate  earthquakes  on  a  grand  scale,  frac- 
turing the  crust  in  a  multitude  of  places;  and  through 
the  fissures  thus  created  the  imprisoned  gases  would 
make  haste  to  escape,  thereby  not  only  giving  rise  to 
numerous  volcanoes  and  much  fouling  of  the  atmosphere, 
but  incidentally  letting  down  the  previously  distended 
crust.  Nor  should  we  here  neglect  to  take  account  of  the 
lateral  stresses  due  to  the  gravitation  of  the  land  masses 
toward  the  north  pole,  for  it  is  just  at  such  a  time  of 
equilibristic  readjustment  as  this  that  this  lateral  pres- 
sure should  make  itself  most  felt  and  improve  the  oc- 
casion by  raising  up  the  great  mountain  chains. 

The  problem  as  to  just  how  often  these  central  ex- 
plosions of  the  sun  occur  may  find  its  answer  in  the  re- 
sponse geologists  shall  give  to  the  question  as  to  the 
frequency  of  ice  ages.  If,  in  the  absence  of  definite 
knowledge,  we  assume  the  earth  to  be  a  billion  years  old 
and  the  average  interval  between  successive  ice  ages  100,- 
000  years,  there  should  have  been,  to  date,  10,000  such 
ages  and  10,000  such  cataclysmal  explosions.  It  is  very 
doubtful,  however,  whether  geology,  on  account  of  oblit- 
erations of  its  records,  can  supply  a  surer  answer  to  this 
query  than  solar  physics  may  more  directly  and  speedily 
yield. 

With  the  escape  of  the  buoyant  gases  from  within 
him,  the  sun  would  naturally  collapse  upon  himself,  and 
there  would  follow  a  long  period  of  rejuvenation  during 
which  his  radiation,  color  and  brilliancy  would  all  be 
those  of  a  star  of  lesser  mass;  and  during  this  same 
period,  which  must  be  regarded  as  an  abnormal  and  fit- 
ful stage,  he  would,  furthermore,  exhibit  fluctuations  in 
all  the  three  attributes  mentioned,  making  of  him,  for  the 
time  being,  a  typical  variable  star. 

Although  solar  and  stellar  explosions  are  auto- 
matically produced  by  the  causes  just  outlined,  it  does 
not  follow  that  these  are  the  sole  agents.  There  must 
always  lie  in  the  back-ground  the  possibility  of  collision, 
not  so  much  with  another  star,  which  is  a  very  remote 


THE  SUN  253 


possibility  indeed,  but  with  a  great  comet.  The  comet 
of  1840-1841  may  have  been  such  a  one,  and  had  it  been 
fired  by  its  parent  star  a  shade  more  accurately,  it  might 
have  struck  the  sun  amidship,  punctured  his  inflated 
integument,  and  precipitated  upon  us  a  dire  calamity. 

THE  GENESIS  OF  THE  SOLAR  SYSTEM 

In  such  catastrophic  explosions  of  the  sun,  then,  be 
their  causes  what  they  may,  we  have  the  secret  of  the 
genesis  of  the  nuclei  of  the  planets  and  the  method  by 
which  these  nuclei  have  been  gradually  built  up  into  the 
great  bodies  we  now  see.  The  planets  were  not  created 
full-grown  and  full-panoplied,  but  they  have  added  layer 
on  layer,  development  to  development.  Indeed,  every 
biological  and  geological  fact  proclaims  the  truth  of  this 
dictum,  as  every  well-informed  scientist  will  freely  con- 
cede. The  objections  to  the  hypothesis  of  self -explosion 
on  the  part  of  the  sun  in  the  past  and  its  heretofore  total 
exclusion  from  consideration,  have  not  been  on  account 
of  any  intrinsic  defect,  but  because  it  left  out  of  the 
reckoning  the  origination  of  the  rotatory  motions  of  the 
systems  and,  besides,  contravened  the  dogma  of  the  con- 
servation of  energy.  The  first  of  these  objections  is  met 
by  the  newly-discovered  principle  of  the  Prime  Eesult- 
ant ;  the  second  will  be  considered  in  a  following  chapter. 

The  pent-up  gases,  escaping  as  they  do  in  these 
catastrophic  cases  from  under  a  hydrostatic  pressure  of 
millions  of  atmospheres,  in  tearing  their  way  through 
the  superincumbent  25,000-mile  shell  naturally  carry  with 
them  billions  upon  billions  of  tons  of  solar  magma  in 
various  stages  of  metallurgical  reduction,  according  to 
the  solar  level  from  which  they  respectively  emanate. 
No  doubt  the  major  part  of  this  upheaved  material  falls 
back  upon  the  sun,  but  a  vast  amount  of  it  is  carried  on 
outward — past  Mercury,  past  Venus,  past  the  earth,  on 
even  to  Neptune,  the  outermost  planet — spreading  itself 
into  a  disc-shaped  nebula  as  it  goes ;  disc-shaped  because 
the  sun-spots  are  known  to  seek  the  solar  equator.  In- 
deed, some  of  these  ejecta  do  not  even  remain  within  the 


254  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

system,  but  forge  onward  into  space,  distancing  the  solar 
gravity,  as  it  were,  and  finally  cross  the  border  line  of 
neighboring  systems,  there  to  become  the  cometary  and 
meteoric  vassals  of  other  suns  and  stars.  Inasmuch  as 
the  repulsive  force  is  single,  and  the  ether  of  space  op- 
poses no  resistance,  we  should  naturally  expect  that  the 
outer  planets  would  be  fed  proportionately  more  of  the 
lighter  materials  of  the  solar  carcass,  and  vice  versa  as 
to  the  planets  nearer  him.  At  any  rate,  this  accords  well 
with  the  physical  facts,  for  the  superior  planets  are  by 
far  the  least  dense. 

The  violence  of  the  ordeal  ended,  the  nuclei  origi- 
nally, and  now  the  matured  planets,  under  the  gyratory 
rule  of  the  Prime  Resultant,  continue  on  in  the  even  tenor 
of  their  way  and  proceed  to  sweep  up  by  their  gravita- 
tional suctions  the  nebular  material  littering  their  re- 
spective orbital  zones.  It  is  quite  true  that  the  nebula, 
under  the  principle  of  systemal  equilibrium,  tends  from 
the  first  to  accomodate  itself  to  the  Keplerian  law  of 
areas,  in  which  case,  if  that  goal  were  immediately 
realized,  the  ingathering  process  would  be  defeated ;  but 
it  is  also  true  that  this  adaptation  requires  a  long  period, 
during  which  the  differentiation  of  orbital  speed  between 
the  coursing  planets  and  the  relatively  stagnant  medium 
immensely  facilitates  the  gleaning  process.  In  spite  of 
this  advantage,  however,  wisps  of  the  most  tenuous  mat- 
ter will  always  remain  uncaptured  and  continue  to  litter 
the  zone  of  the  ecliptic  indefinitely.  These  wisps,  being 
illuminated  by  the  sun  outside  the  boundaries  of  the 
earth 's  shadow,  are  responsible  for  the  phenomena  known 
as  the  Zodiacal  Light  and  Gegenschein. 

When  I  say  that  the  planets  devour  this  nebular  mat- 
ter, I  do  not  mean  to  exclude  from  the  cannibalistic  feast 
the  asteroids,  satellites,  or  even  the  meteors,  that  help  to 
make  up  our  system.  All  of  these  share  impartially,  ac- 
cording to  their  respective  gravitative  voracities.  Fur- 
thermore, they  stand  the  same  risk  of  being  struck  by 
the  flying  missiles.  This  suggests  the  question  as  to 
what  should  be  the  direct  effect  upon  terrestrial  life  were 


THE  SUN  255 


such  a  catastrophe  as  I  have  described  to  take  place  to- 
day. 

Granting  that  the  earth  is  the  built-up  product  of 
10,000  such  contributions  from  the  solar  mass,  and  that 
the  same  thing  is  true  of  all  the  rest  of  the  planets  and 
satellites,  then,  since  all  these  together  equal  1-750  of  the 
sun,  it  follows  that  the  latter  loses  on  each  such  occasion 
only  1-7,500,000  of  his  corpus,  or,  say,  1-20  of  an  earth. 
Since  the  earth's  disc,  as  previously  computed,  intercepts 
only  1-2,000,000,000  of  the  sun's  light,  of  course  it  would 
likewise  intercept  only  the  1-2,000,000,000  of  1-20  of  six 
sextillions  of  tons  of  weight,  or  150,000,000,000  of  tons- 
equal  to  750  tons  to  the  square  mile,  or,  say,  1.25  tons  to 
the  acre,  taking  in  the  entire  area  of  the  earth's  surface. 
Of  course  this  solar  hail  would  not  be  evenly  distributed, 
unequal  fragments  being  promiscuously  scattered  here 
and  there,  while  the  night  side  of  the  planet  and  other 
sheltered  places  might  escape  scot  free.  The  real  incre- 
ment to  the  planet's  growth  would  not  be  acquired  by 
this  direct  bombardment,  but  by  the  subsequent  slow 
gleanings  from  the  nebula. 


THE  STAKS  AND  NEBULAE 

TT  ^  made  the  stars  also ' '  is  the  curt  phrase  with 
which  the  Mosaic  cosmogony  dismisses  these 

•*•  wonderful  diadems  of  the  sky,  and,  milleniums 
later,  the  great  Newton  himself  knew  nothing  to  add 
about  them  in  the  way  of  definite  knowledge.  During  the 
past  century,  however,  beginning  with  Bessel's  and 
Henderson's  successful  determinations  of  the  parallaxes 
of  Alpha  Centauri  and  61  Cygni  in  the  1830  ?s,  the  dis- 
covery of  the  principle  of  spectrum  analysis  by  Kirchhoif 
in  1859,  and  Sir  William  Huggins'  application  of  the 
Doppler  principle  to  the  study  of  spectra  for  determining 
the  radial  velocities  of  stars,  in  1868,  immense  progress 
has  been  made — but,  only,  be  it  frankly  said,  in  the  way 
of  gathering  material,  rather  than  in  the  work  of  actual 
construction.  Let  me  particularize : 

STELLAR  MOTIONS 

First,  as  to  stellar  motions.  I  trust  I  am  not  mis- 
judging the  aims  of  astronomers  in  supposing  that  their 
detailed  study  of  individual  stars  and  of  their  several 
proper  and  radial  motions  is  not  esteemed  by  them  an 
end  in  itself,  but  a  stepping  stone,  merely,  to  an  ultimate 
understanding  of  the  organic  constitution  of  the  universe 
as  a  unit  and  a  system.  Indeed,  if  the  latter  be  not  the 
true  purpose,  and  if  the  mere  multiplication  of  unclassifi- 
able  and  unintelligible  data  of  such  things  as,  observa- 
tions on  variable  stars,  star  spectra,  radial  motions  of 
stars,  proper  motions  of  stars,  distances  of  stars,  magni- 


THE  STAKS  AND  NEBULAE  257 

tudes  of  stars,  and  the  like,  is  the  sole  end  in  view,  then 
in  the  name  of  common  sense  and  wholesome  economy 
let  the  farce  be  stopped.  There  is  but  one  way  to  justify 
all  this  labor  and  expense  of  accumulation  and  to  lift 
work  of  the  same  sort  in  the  future  above  the  plane  of 
drudgery  and  mental  dissipation,  and  that  is,  by  finding 
a  noble  and  structural  use  for  it  all. 

Suppose  that  mankind,  notwithstanding  all  the  in- 
vestigations with  telescope  and  spectroscope  hitherto 
made,  should  have  continued  in  the  belief  that  the  earth 
is  the  center  of  the  universe  and  that  the  firmament  re- 
volves around  it  daily  ;  what  genuine  value  would  all  our 
detailed  knowledge  possess?  The  knowledge  both  of  the 
earth's  rotation  on  her  axis  and  around  the  sun  is  abso- 
lutely indispensable  to  a  sane  interpretation  of  the  solar 
system.  But  it  is  no  more  essential  to  this  purpose  than 
is  the  knowledge  of  the  form  of  the  sun's  path  in  space 
to  a  sane  interpretation  of  the  stellar  motions  and  system. 
It  constitutes  all  the  difference  between  truth  and  error, 
between  a  yes  and  a  no,  whether  the  sun  is  speeding  in  a 
straight  line  or  in  a  curve.  Doctor  W.  W.  Campbell, 
Director  of  the  Lick  Observatory,  to  whom  the  world  of 
astronomy  looks  for  leadership  in  this  special  field,  in 
his  magnum  opus  (Stellar  Motions,  p.  194)  thus  antag- 
onizes the  hypothesis  of  the  sun's  path  being  else  but 
rectilinear  : 

These  are  frequent  and  legitimate  questions:  Is  the  solar 
system  moving  in  a  simple  orbit,  such  as  a  conic  section?  Will 
it  eventually  complete  a  circuit  in  this  orbit  and  return  to  the 
part  of  its  orbit  where  it  is  now?  The  idea  of  affirmative  answeVs 
to  these  questions  appears  to  be  prevalent  in  the  human  miftdf. 
It  is  natural  to  think  that  we  must  be  moving  on  a  great 
perhaps  closed  like  an  ellipse,  or  open  like  a  parabola  —  tji 
of  mass  of  the  universe  being  in  the  curve's  principal  fjo£us% 
attraction  which  any  individual  star  is  exerting  upon,  iiis  ^s.  -cer- 
tainly slight,  owing  to  its  enormous  distance,  and  the\feurta3fr  S$- 
traction  of  all  the  stars  may  not  be  very  much  greater^  * 
we  are  believed  to  be  somewhere  near  the 
system,  the  attractions  of  the  stars  in  the  vari 
nearly  neutralize  one  another,  in  accordancev  :w,ith  ^Jac  princline 
that  a  body  situated  within  a  concentrically  homtSrenftoUS*  sgnere 

9ira 


is  effectively  acted  upon  only  by  the  graV 


258  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

the  centre  of  the  sphere  than  itself.  Even  though  we  may  be 
following  a  definite  curve  at  the  present  time,  there  is,  in  my 
opinion,  little  doubt  that  we  shall  be  prevented  from  continuing 
upon  it  indefinitely.  In  the  course  of  our  travels  we  should  be 
carried,  sooner  or  later,  relatively  close  to  some  individual  star 
whose  attraction  would  be  vastly  more  powerful  than  that  of  all 
the  other  stars  combined.  This  would  draw  us  more  or  less  from 
our  present  curve  and  cause  us  to  follow  a  different  curve.  At 
a  later  date  our  travels  might  carry  us  into  the  sphere  of  attrac- 
tion of  some  other  great  sun  which  would  send  us  away  in  a  still 
different  direction.  Thus,  the  chances  are,  in  my  opinion,  that 
our  path  would,  in  time,  be  made  up  of  a  succession  of  unrelated 
curves. 

The  results  deduced  above  define  the  direction  and  speed 
of  the  solar  motion  along  a  straight  line;  and,  as  a  single  line  does 
not  fix  the  position  of  a  plane,  we  are  without  knowledge  as  to 
the  plane  in  which  the  solar  system  is  moving.  It  is  of  great  in- 
terest that  the  present  line  of  motion  lies  nearly  in  the  plane  of 
the  Milky  Way,  making  in  fact  an  angle  of  about  17°  with  the 
central  line  of  the  Milky  Way.  We  need  not  concern  ourselves 
at  present  with  the  question  of  the  plane  of  our  orbit,  for  the 
curvature  of  our  path  is  undoubtedly  so  slight  that  we  may  con- 
sider it  as  a  straight  line  for  many  generations  of  astronomers  to 
come.  (The  italics  are  mine) 

In  giving  utterance  to  these  opinions  Doctor  Camp- 
bell has  not  only  vented  his  own  personal  views,  but  has 
likewise  stated  the  only  logical  conclusion  that  the  New- 
tonian doctrines  of  uncaused  motions  and  negation  of 
equilibrium  allow.  About  the  only  thing  of  great  sig- 
nificance that  this  study  of  the  proper  and  radial  motions 
of  stars — a  study  which  represents  a  perfectly  incredible 
expenditure  of  valuable  time,  skill,  energy  and  money — 
has  developed,  is  the  supposed  existence  of  star-streams, 
for  which  the  investigators  confess  their  inability  to  sug- 
gest any  explanation,  and  whose  existence  runs  counter 
to  every  Neivtonian  tradition.  Under  my  system  of  in- 
terpretation these  streams  are  not  streams  at  all,  but  an 
optical  illusion  created  by  the  movement  of  our  solar 
system  in  its  gyroscopic  course  from  east  to  west  and  the 
fall  of  the  ecliptic;  much  as  the  ancient  notion  that  the 
heavens  rotated  daily  around  our  earth  was  such  an  il- 
lusion. By  parity  of  reasoning,  the  so-called  vertices  of 
preferential  motion  are  likewise  the  effect  of  identically 


THE  STARS  AND  NEBULAE  259 

the  same  cause ;  and  so,  likewise,  is  the  locus  of  the  solar 
apex,  as  hitherto  determined,  apparent  merely,  and  not 
real.  The  true  course  of  the  sun  is  that  of  recession 
(westward)  from  the  celestial  point  of  the  vernal  equinox 
along  the  equinoctial  colure;  the  latter 's  length  (186,- 
000,000  miles)  constituting  an  arc  of  about  50".2  of  the 
sun's  orbit,  having  its  concave  side  toward  the  position 
of  our  earth  in  winter,  and  continually  sinking  toward 
the  Vertex,  or  gravitational  pole  of  the  ecliptic,  at  the 
rate  of  some  six  miles  per  second.  In  attempting  to 
visualize  this  description  and  to  truly  appraise  the  il- 
lusory character  of  these  "  streams "  the  reader  is  cau- 
tioned to  take  into  the  reckoning  the  phenomenon  of 
precession  at  its  face  value,  and  not  to  discount  it,  as 
astronomers  now  do,  under  the  rulings  of  Newton's  mis- 
conception of  its  cause.  The  sun,  under  their  conception, 
should  seem  to  tend  toward  R.A.  270°  and  Dec.  +33°. 23, 
but  his  actual  path  is  as  I  have  described. 

Generally  speaking,  the  movements  of  stars  are  far 
too  slow,  and  the  labor  of  ascertaining  them  in  the  first 
instance,  and  of  afterward  piecing  them  together,  far  too 
tedious  and  difficult,  ever  to  make  the  general  mapping 
out  of  the  stellar  field  into  minor  individual  systems  well 
worth  while  or,  perhaps,  possible.  Enough  of  this  sort 
of  work  has  already  been  done,  however,  and  more  is  now 
in  progress,  to  reveal  the  tendency  of  vast  star-clusters 
to  arrange  themselves  into  spiral  conformations,  indi- 
cating the  operation  of  some  common  cause.  What,  I 
pray,  can  this  cause  be  other  than  gravitation — not  cen- 
tripetal attraction  by  itself,  which  logically  should  de- 
stroy the  isolated  system  (all  the  faster  because  of  its 
isolation),  but  that  attraction  in  combination  with  the 
stellar  resultant  reinforced  by  the  equilibristic  principle? 
The  clue  to  all  such  observed  arrangements  is  to  be  found, 
if  at  all,  in  first  determining  as  nearly  as  can  be  from 
observation  the  directions  of  the  shortest  axis  and  of  the 
longest  axis  of  the  given  cluster,  and  then  angling  for  the 
line  of  the  prime  resultant  that  best  fits  the  situation. 
In  this  connection  it  will  be  illuminating  to  compare  this 


260  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

passage  from  Professor  Proctor's  book,  already  referred 
to  (Our  Place  Among  Infinities,  pp.  201-202) : 

Father  Secchi  of  Rome  speaks  thus  of  the  distribution  of 
stars  within  a  certain  very  bright  portion  of  the  Milky  Way  in 
the  constellation  Sagittarius,  as  revealed  by  the  powers  of  the 
fine  refracting  telescope  of  the  Roman  Observatory: —  "There 
are  large  stars  and  lucid  clusters;  then  a  layer  of  smaller  stars 
certainly  below  the  twelfth  magnitude;  then  a  nebulous  stratum 
with  occasional  openings."  But  what  startled  him  and  all  to 
whom  he  showed  it,  was  the  regular  disposition  of  the  stars  in 
figures  so  geometrical  that  it  is  impossible  to  regard  them  as  ac- 
cidental. "They  are  for  the  most  part  like  the  arcs  of  a  spiral; 
one  can  count  as  many  as  ten  or  twelve  stars  of  the  ninth  and 
tenth  magnitude — following  each  other  on  the  same  curve  like 
the  beads  on  a  rosary;  sometimes  they  seem  to  diverge  from  a 
common  center,  and,  strangely  enough,  it  usually  happens  that 
either  at  the  center  of  the  rays,  or  at  the  beginning  of  the  branch 
of  a  curve,  there  is  a  larger  star  of  a  red  colour.  It  is  impossible 
to  regard  such  an  arrangement  of  the  stars  as  accidental." 

That  scholastic  astronomy,  notwithstanding  its 
wealth  of  detailed  knowledge,  remains  primitively  ignor- 
ant of  the  general  principles  governing  the  movements  of 
stars,  as  well  as  of  the  structure  and  internal  activities 
of  the  individual  stars,  and  that  some  radical  reform  in 
astronomical  theory  is  imperatively  called  for,  will  ap- 
pear from  the  subjoined  quotations.  The  first  of  these 
is  taken  from  Doctor  Campbell's  book  (p.  216) : 

It  is  not  easy  to  explain  why  the  velocities  of  stars  should 
increase  with  their  effective  ages,  for  we  are  accustomed  to  think 
of  all  matter  as  equally  old  gravitationally.  Why  should  not  the 
materials  composing  a  nebula  or  a  Class  B  star  have  been  acted 
upon  by  gravitational  forces  as  long  and  as  effectively  as  the  ma- 
terials in  the  Class  M  stars?  Are  stellar  materials  in  the  ante- 
stellar  state  subject  to  Newton's  law  of  gravitation?  Does  gravi- 
tation become  effective  only  after  the  processes  of  combination 
are  well  under  way  ?  Is  it  possible  that  the  gaseous  matter  com- 
posing a  nebula  is  acted  upon  as  effectively  by  radiation  pressure 
as  by  gravitational  attraction?  The  observed  fact  of  the  de- 
pendence of  stellar  velocity  upon  the  spectral  class  is  so  new 
that  these  comments  and  questions  make  no  pretensions  to  the 
status  of  a  solution;  but  I  am  unable  to  suggest  any  other  direc- 
tions in  which  we  should  seek  for  the  explanation. 

And  the  second  is  from  the  recent  work  of  Professor 


THE  STARS  AND  NEBULAE  261 

A.  S.  Eddington,  of  the  University  of  Cambridge  (Stellar 
Movements,  p.  255) : 

The  problems  on  which  dynamics  would  be  expected  to  throw 
some  light  are  numerous.  Why  have  the  stars  in  the  early  stages 
very  small  velocities?  Why  do  these  velocities  afterwards  in- 
crease? In  particualr,  how  do  the  stars  acquire  the  velocities  at 
right  angles  to  the  original  plane  of  distribution,  which  cause  the 
latest  types  to  be  distributed  in  a  nearly  spherical  form  ?  How  are 
the  two  star-streams  to  be  explained?  What  is  the  meaning  of 
the  third  steam,  Drift  O?  Can  the  partial  conforming  to  Max- 
well's law  be  accounted  for?  What  prevents  the  collapse  of  the 
Milky  Way? 

Some  of  these  problems  seem  to  be  at  present  quite  insoluble. 
Indeed,  it  must  be  admitted  that  very  little  progress  has  been 
made  in  the  application  of  dynamics  to  stellar  problems.  What 
has  been  accomplished  is  rather  of  the  nature  of  preparatory 
work.  It  has  been  shown  that  stellar  dynamics  is  a  different 
study  from  gas-dynamics,  and,  indeed,  from  the  theory  of  any 
type  of  system  that  has  yet  been  investigated.  A  regular  progres- 
sion may  be  traced  through  rigid  dynamics,  hydro-dynamics,  gas- 
dynamics  to  stellar  dynamics.  In  the  first  all  the  particles  move 
in  a  connected  manner ;  in  the  second  there  is  continuity  between 
the  motions  of  contiguous  particles;  in  the  third  the  adjacent 
particles  act  on  one  another  by  collision,  so  that,  although  there 
is  no  mathematical  continuity,  a  kind  of  physical  continuity  re- 
mains; in  the  last  the  adjacent  particles  are  entirely  independent. 
A  new  type  of  dynamical  system  has  therefore  to  be  considered, 
and  it  is  probably  necessary  first  to  work  out  the  results  in  simple 
cases  and  to  become  familiar  with  the  general  properties,  before 
attempting  to  solve  the  complex  problems  which  the  actual  stellar 
universe  presents.  This  has  been  the  mode  of  development  in  the 
other  branches  of  dynamics. 

STAR  STRUCTURE  AND  CHARACTERISTICS 

Granting  to  all  stars  the  same  chemical  constitution 
in  kind  and  ratio,  I  hold  that  their  temperature,  density, 
velocity,  color,  and  brightness  are  all  functioned  on  the 
mass,  and,  further,  that  their  spectra  are  ordinarily 
reliable  criteria  of  their  masses.  By  this  I  do  not  mean 
that  there  is  any  exactly  commensurate  relationship  or 
correspondence  between  all  of  these  characteristics,  but 
merely  that,  the  bigger  the  star  the  hotter  its  tempera- 
ture, the  thinner  its  density,  the  slower  its  velocity,  the 


262  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

whiter  (or  more  bluish)  its  light,  the  brighter  it  is,  and 
the  more  refractory  its  normal  spectrum.  This  rule  is 
subject  to  one  general  qualification,  namely,  that  all  stars 
are  liable  to  collapse  (as  a  result  either  of  spontaneous 
explosions  due  to  clogged  radiation,  or  of  puncturing  by 
flying  missiles  from  other  stars)  and  also  to  variations 
(e.  g.  sun-spots),  which  are  in  the  nature  of  collapses, 
only  minor  in  degree  and  quickly  periodical  in  recurrence. 
In  these  collapsed  or  semi-collapsed  states,  the  star,  by 
reason  of  the  sudden  escape  of  great  quantities  of  its 
superheated  gases,  drops  for  a  spell  into  a  lower  order  of 
stars,  not  so  much  because  of  the  actual  loss  of  substance, 
which  is  relatively  insignificant,  but  because  of  its  de- 
cided fall  in  temperature,  whereby  its  phenomena  are  for 
the  time  being  modified.  We  will  now  consider  the  vari- 
ous characteristics  separately. 

TEMPERATURE.  According  to  current  notions,  based 
as  they  are  on  the  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of  energy, 
all  the  stars,  the  sun,  and  the  planets  are  in  the  process 
of  cooling  down  from  an  initial  state  of  incandescence ; 
hence,  argue  the  scholastics,  the  duller  a  star  the  older. 
In  the  next  chapter  I  shall  attack  this  law  of  conserva- 
tion and  expose  its  hideous  absurdity,  establishing  in  its 
stead  the  proposition  that  heat  is  a  staple  product  of 
Nature's,  and  that  gravitation,  as  represented  in  quantity 
of  mass,  is  a  perpetual  generator  of  it. 

DENSITY.  Were  the  density  of  every  cosmic  body 
the  very  same,  then  mass  and  volume  could  be  treated 
in  mathematical  computations  as  synonymous  terms.  It 
is,  however,  far  from  being  the  same ;  each  planet  having 
its  own  particular  density,  the  sun  having  his,  and  every 
star  presumably  having  its.  There  must  be  some  physi- 
cal cause  or  causes  for  this  contrariety,  What  are  they? 
These  three  occur  to  me:  (1)  Difference  in  chemical  con- 
stitution, (2)  Self-compression,  (3)  Expansion  by  heat. 

That  there  is  considerable  difference  in  the  chemical 
composition  of  the  celestial  bodies — if  not  in  the  number 
of  elements  represented,  at  least  in  their  relative  propor- 
tions— seems  altogether  likely ;  but  there  is  no  way  of  as- 


THE  STARS  AND  NEBULAE  263 

certaining  the  extent  of  this  difference  in  any  particular 
case.  Some  of  my  readers  may  suppose  this  knowledge 
obtainable  from  the  spectra  of  the  stars,  but  these  give 
no  clue  whatever  as  to  either  the  quantities,  absolute  or 
relative,  nor,  since  the  revelation  of  an  element  in  the 
spectrum  depends  on  the  temperature  intensity,  do  these 
spectra  even  settle  the  problem  as  to  the  mere  number  of 
elements.  Except,  therefore,  where  we  can  assign  some 
definite  ground  for  hypothesizing  otherwise,  we  have  no 
option  but  tentatively  to  assume  that  all  stars,  if  not 
exactly,  are  yet  approximately  enough  alike  chemically 
to  validate  comparisons  between  them  on  this  basis. 

Having  thus  ruled  out  the  factor  of  differential 
chemical  composition,  not  because  of  its  immateriality 
but  because  of  its  indeterminateness,  we  are  relegated  to 
the  two  remaining  factors  of  self-compression  and  tem- 
perature. These  two  I  associate,  making  the  latter  de- 
pend on  the  first  as  a  causal  effect.  Construing  density 
to  decrease  with  temperature  increase,  we  may  begin  by 
imagining  all  stars  cold  to  begin  with,  and  all  of  them 
virtually  of  the  same  density.  This  last  would,  of  course, 
not  be  exactly  true,  inasmuch  as  the  larger  stars,  because 
of  their  more  powerful  self -compression,  would  necessar- 
ily pack  their  contents  into  smaller  compass;  but  this, 
you  can  see,  is  a  negligible  consideration  inasmuch  as 
the  condition  requiring  to  be  elucidated  is  not  why  the 
big  bodies  are  more  compact  but  why  they  are  vastly  less 
compact  than  the  small.  As  said  before,  then,  density 
being  taken  as  initially  the  same  for  all  bodies,  mass  and 
volume  become  synonymous,  and  we  have  for  the  ratio 
of  the  integral  attractions  of  cosmic  bodies  in  general  the 
formula, 

M  m 


in  which  M  is  the  mass  of  the  large  body,  m  that  of  the 
smaller,  and  8i/M~  and  *i/m~  are  their  respective  radii; 
the  latter  terms  being  squared  and  placed  under  the  line 
in  conformity  with  the  law  of  inverse  squares.  Sub- 
stituting, by  way  of  illustration,  the  sun's  mass  for  M 


264 FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBUIA 

and  the  earth's  (unity)  for  m,  and  working  the  problem 
out,  we  shall  find  that  the  sun's  integral  attraction  (were 
his  density  the  same  as  the  earth's,  instead  of  only  one- 
fourth,  as  it  is)  would  be  69  times  as  great,  whereas, 
computed  on  the  basis  of  his  real  density,  this  ratio  is 
only  27.6  to  one !  What,  I  pray,  becomes  of  the  tremen- 
dous surplus  of  this  potential  attraction  (by  which  name 
we  will  hereafter  refer  to  it)  over  the  observed!  So  far 
as  my  reading  has  extended,  I  have  found  no  suggestion 
about  it  anywhere,  much  less  an  attempt  to  fit  it  into  the 
web  of  scientific  theory.  Yet  what  could  be  more  likely 
a  priori  than  that  this  surplus  energy  is  utilized  in  the 
wise  economy  of  nature  for  two  things,  first,  to  gaseously 
inflate  the  sun  for  certain  cosmic  ends,  which  I  have  al- 
ready outlined,  and,  secondly,  to  generate  the  light,  heat, 
and,  perhaps,  magnetism  that  is  radiated  so  lavishly  to 
the  planets?  Without  going  into  the  complicated  minu- 
tiae, it  can  be  shown  by  mathematics  that  the  density  of 
stars  diminishes  as  the  "potential  attraction"  increases, 
and  in  making  this  statement  I  am  not  unmindful  of  the 
apparent,  but  only  apparent,  contradictions  of  some  of 
the  planets ;  and  by  the  same  process  of  computation,  it 
can  further  be  proved  that  the  shell,  though  it  increases 
in  absolute  thickness,  diminishes  relatively  to  the  length 
of  the  radius,  with  the  star's  growth. 

(In  passing,  be  it  said,  the  reason  why  the  sun's 
density  seems  to  be  greater  than  that  of  the  major 
planets  is  because  the  ball  of  the  former  being  luminous, 
we  see  it  directly,  despite  his  tremendously  deep  and 
dense  atmosphere.  Were  the  ball  to  lose  its  brightness, 
we  should  see  him  as  a  dark  disc  whose  diameter  would 
appear  much  greater  because  it  would  then  include  the 
thickness  of  his  atmosphere;  and  his  density  would  suf- 
fer in  the  computation  accordingly). 

VELOCITY.  Owing  to  two  misconceptions  hitherto 
prevailing,  namely;  (1)  that  dull  stars  are  old,  and  hence 
presumptively  massive,  and  (2)  that  proper  motions  are 
"inherent",  Newtonians  have  been  unable  to  formulate 
any  rule  whatsoever  regarding  stellar  velocities.  These 


THE  STABS  AND  NEBULAE  265 

latter,  in  their  philosophy,  are  as  capricious  and  arbi- 
trary as  the  "inherent"  motions  themselves.  The  new 
principles  which  I  submit  are  these : 

(1)  It  follows  mathematically  from  Newton's  law 
of  inverse  squares  and  the  law  of  the  energy  of  motion, 
that  if  two  bodies  of  different  mass  be  conceived  as  oc- 
cupying space  alone,  they  will  approach  each  other  with 
velocities  inversely  proportional  to  the  square  roots  of 
their  respective  masses.  Dull  stars,  therefore,  e.  g.,  are 
consequently  both  small  and  quick  moving. 

2.  Save  in  the  cases  of  binary  stars,  where  the  cir- 
culatory relation  is  patent,  current  astronomy  regards 
all  star  movements  as  rectilinear  and  dynamically  in- 
dependent. On  the  contrary,  I  regard  all  the  stars  as 
organically  interrelated  in  the  greater  cosmos,  much  as 
the  individual  soldiers  are  constituent  parts  of  a  great 
army.  Thus,  the  earth  and  moon  form  by  themselves 
the  simplest  of  all  systems — a  binary;  the  sun  and  his 
planets  another,  more  complicated;  the  sun  and  one  or 
more  of  his  near  neighbors  a  still  higher  system,  whose 
extent  and  membership  we  have  not  yet  been  privileged 
to  discover — and  so  on.  You  can  see  here  that  the  minor 
members  necessarily  move  more  rapidly  than  the  major, 
for  the  substantial  reason  that  they  have  all  the  various 
motions  in  cumulation.  It  is  therefore  only  to  be  ex- 
pected that  the  smaller  stars,  in  whatever  relation  they 
may  find  themselves,  should,  caeteris  paribus,  travel  with 
greater  celerity  than  the  more  cumbrous;  as,  in  fact, 
they  do.  Star  velocity,  then,  is  a  function  of  the  mass, 
not  directly,  but  inversely  as  the  square  roots. 

BRIGHTNESS.  Finally,  as  to  the  intrinsic  brightness 
of  stars.  If  it  were  possible  to  determine  which  is  in- 
trinsically the  brightest  of  all  stars,  it  would  be  equal  to 
finding  at  the  same  time  the  very  hottest  and  the  very 
biggest  as  well — biggest  not  only  in  girth  but  in  mass. 
Furthermore,  it  would  be  the  least  dense,  and  (less  cer- 
tainly) the  most  sluggish  in  movement.  The  reason  for 
adding  this  last  parenthesis  is  that  pivot-stars  (by  which 
I  mean  such  as,  by  reason  of  their  relatively  great  size, 


266  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

preempt  the  central  positions)  have  little  motion  besides 
that  imposed  by  the  direct  action  of  their  stellar  resul- 
tant, whose  strength  varies,  of  course,  in  the  different 
regions  of  the  heavens,  and  may  possibly  attain,  in  ex- 
ceptional instances,  a  high  maximum. 

"But",  you  may  ask,  "how  are  we  to  distinguish 
between  those  stars  that  are  intrinsically  the  brightest 
and  those  that  are  brilliant  only  because  of  nearness  f " 
The  answer  is  twofold:  (1)  by  the  color  of  the  given  star, 
and  (2)  by  its  spectrum;  which  characteristics  in  all  cases 
corroborate  each  other.  The  more  refractory  the  spec- 
trum (that  is  to  say,  the  more  involatile  the  elements  it 
reveals)  the  brighter  the  star  in  itself.  In  choosing  the 
monuments,  therefore,  for  celestial  surveying,  care 
should  be  taken  to  select  a  series  of  Class  A  stars  (which, 
according  to  my  interpretation,  are  the  very  largest), 
whose  color  and  spectra  both  are  nearest  alike.  Of 
course  the  visual  magnitudes  of  these  stars,  owing  to 
their  diverse  distances,  will  vary  widely,  even  though 
their  intrinsic  brightness,  as  I  claim,  is  quite  the  same. 
It  can  readily  be  seen,  then,  that  in  this  scale  of  differing 
apparent  magnitudes  based  on  a  choice  of  stars  equally 
"bright  intrinsically  and  of  the  same  order  of  size,  we  have 
a  most  satisfactory  and  reliable  means  to  gauge  the 
stellar  distances;  and,  secondly,  inasmuch  as  these  stars 
are  by  parity  of  reasoning  the  slowest-moving,  we  have 
at  the  same  time  reasonably  stationary  celestial  pins 
from  which  to  estimate  the  wanderings  of  stars  less 
stable.  This  principle  need  not  be  limited  to  Class  A 
stars,  but  can  be  applied  whenever  desired  and  conveni- 
ent to  a  series  of  stars  drawn  from  any  other  isochro- 
matic  spectral  class. 

It  follows  deductively  from  the  premises  that  the 
bigger  stars,  being  by  hypothesis  hotter  for  that  reason, 
volatilize  a  correspondingly  larger  percentage  of  their 
component  substances;  thereby  increasing  the  size  of 
the  inner  chamber  of  gases  relatively  to  the  thickness  of 
the  shell  for  these  reasons,  namely:  (1)  by  direct  aug- 
mentation of  the  quantum  of  the  gas  at  the  expense  of  the 
shell,  (2)  by  enhanced  expansion  of  that  gas  due  to  the 


THE  STABS  AND  NEBULAE  267 

increased  temperature,  (3)  by  pushing  the  shell  out  that 
much  farther,  thereby  enlarging  the  area  over  which  the 
shell-substance  must  spread  itself,  and  (4)  by  virtue  of 
the  circumstance  that  the  weight  of  the  shell,  under  the 
law  of  the  inverse  square,  diminishes  with  its  distance 
from  the  center,  rendering  easier  its  further  uplifting. 
But  let  us  now  consider  the  effect  of  all  this  on  the  texture 
and  conduct  of  the  shell  itself : 

In  the  first  place,  the  gradual  distillation-out  of  the 
more  volatile  substances  necessarily  simplifies  its  cliemi- 
cal  constitution  and  correspondingly  affects  the  quality 
of  the  spectrum. 

Secondly,  the  increasing  predominance  in  the  gey- 
sers of  the  more  refractory  materials  which,  as  we  all 
know,  in  their  incandescent  state  are  dazzlingly  brilliant, 
naturally  augments  the  luminosity  of  the  star  as  a  whole. 

Thirdly,  the  hotter  the  shell  the  more  plastic  or  fluid 
is  it;  hence  the  freer  the  ebullitions,  the  less  liability  to 
clogging,  and  the  more  multitudinous  the  geysers,  whose 
pinnacles  it  is  that  cast  off  the  radiance.  This  feature 
not  only  helps  to  account  for  increased  brilliancy  of  stars 
with  growth,  but  explains  why  the  very  bright  stars  are 
never  found  among  the  long  period  variables,  save  of 
course,  those  of  the  eclipsing  variety. 

Finally,  the  fact  that  the  shell  of  a  star,  notwith- 
standing its  increase  in  absolute  thickness  with  the 
star's  growth,  declines  relatively  to  the  other  stellar 
dimensions,  cannot  fail  eventually  to  weaken  the  star's 
structural  stability  and  to  bring  about  its  automatic 
bursting  and  dissolution  into  a  nebula.  Nebulae  thus 
evolved  are  obviously  of  enormous  extent,  not  only  be- 
cause of  the  maximal  size  of  their  parent  stars,  but  also 
because  of  the  maximal  pressure  under  which  the  central 
gases  were  confined  and  from  under  which  they  all  the 
more  violently  escape.  There  is,  then,  an  arbitrary  limit 
imposed  by  Nature  beyond  which  no  star  can  grow,  how- 
soever favorably  it  may  be  situated  for  further  growth, 
and  howsoever  stout  may  be  its  armor  against  cometary 
missiles  from  without.  Here,  in  this  simple  explana- 


268  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

tion,  we  have  harmoniously  coordinated  the  following 
important  considerations:  (1)  How  the  greater  nebulae 
are  formed;  (2)  Why  stars,  though  differing  greatly 
in  mass,  yet  observe  a  certain  order  of  size,  like  trees 
and  animals;  (3)  Why  there  is  not  and  can  never  be  a 
great '  '  central  sun ' ' ;  (4)  The  dispersive  force  by  which 
the  destructive  centralizing  tendency  of  gravitation  is 
counteracted  and  the  balance  of  Nature  automatically 
maintained.  Just  how  large  a  star  may  become  is 
another  matter.  Even  this  problem,  however,  is  sus- 
ceptible of  mathematical  determination  within  reasonable 
approximation,  though  we  cannot  stop  to  deal  with  this 
complex  problem  now.  In  my  opinion  Doctor  Campbell 
greatly  overestimates  the  possibilities,  when  he  says 
(Stellar  Motions,  p.  158) : — 

The  parallax  of  [Canopus]  can  scarcely  exceed  .01  or  .02  of 
a  second  as  a  maximum.  We  can  scarcely  doubt  that  Canopus  is 
radiating  certainly  1000  and  perhaps  100,000  times  as  much  light 
as  the  Sun.  If  the  effective  radiating  power  of  its  surface  equals 
that  of  the  Sun,  the  surface  must  be  fully  rooo  times  as  great  as 
the  Sun's.  Its  corresponding  volume  would  be  31,000  solar 
volumes.  Its  mass  must  greatly  exceed  the  Sun's  mass,  probably 
between  1000  and  30,000  fold. 

When  stars  of  very  large  size,  and  of  precarious 
structure  because  of  their  relatively  thin  shell,  are  sub- 
ject to  the  stress  of  an  especially  powerful  stellar  re- 
sultant of  short  stem  (a  condition  which  occurs  when 
many  stars  are  in  close  proximity),  they  are  forced  to 
rotate  on  their  axes  with  extreme  rapidity,  enough  so 
at  times  as  to  flatten  them  out  sufficiently  thin  to  cause 
their  poles  to  coalesce,  and  so  to  bring  into  being  two 
stars  of  smaller  size.  This  phenomenon  is  called  star- 
fission  and,  though  rare,  is  well-authenticated  by  the 
observers.  In  the  majority  of  cases,  it  appears,  this 
unique  feat  of  surgery,  when  Nature  attempts  it,  turns 
out  a  success,  the  sundered  ends  are  successfully  sealed 
and  cauterized,  and  the  severance  of  the  celestial  Siamese 
twins  becomes  an  accomplished  fact.  However,  there 
is  at  least  one  case  where  a  failure  in  this  sort  of  cosmic 
chirurgery  seems  to  have  been  scored  and  resulted  in  a 
double-nebula  instead.  Harking  back  to  Darwin's  tidal 


THE  STARS  AND  NEBULAE  269 

evolution  theory,  the  reader  may  argue,  as  indeed  Darwin 
and  his  adherents  do,  that  since  the  fission  of  stars  can 
and  does  take  place,  the  earth  might  have  flung  off  the 
moon.  The  cases,  however,  as  the  sincere  reader  will 
see  on  second  thought,  are  not  parallel  at  all.  In  this 
connection  compare  this  interesting  passage  from  Doctor 
Campbell's  book,  (p.  291) : 

The  two  stars  [Beta  Lyrse]  are  enormous  in  size,  but  of  very 
low  density.  They  are  so  close  together  as  to  be  almost  in  con- 
tact. The  two  bodies  are  in  form  approximately  prolate  ellip- 
soids, with  their  longer  dimensions  in  the  line  joining  the  two 
bodies.  The  immediate  cause  of  the  variable  brightness  is  due, 
in  large  part,  to  the  eclipsing  of  one  body  by  the  other,  but  there 
are  probably  other  factors  entering  to  a  minor  degree,  such  as 
tidal  ebb  and  flow,  which  must  exist,  as  the  orbit  seems  to  be 
slightly  eccentric. 

VARIABLE  STARS 

In  a  sense  all  stars  may  be  said  to  be  Variable,  for 
all  alike  have  explosive  graduated  shells.  In  the  very 
large  stars,  however,  the  shells  are  much  more  homoge- 
neous and  much  more  fluid,  so  that  the  ebullient  action  is 
practically  uniform.  I  am  speaking  now,  not  of  eclipsing 
variables,  whose  changeableness  is  obviously  due  to  the 
intervention  of  companion  bodies,  but  of  those  whose 
flickering  is  due  to  a  change  that  goes  on  in  the  star  itself. 
In  the  previous  chapter  I  have  already  given  the  reader 
my  version  of  the  true  nature  of  sun-spots  and  the  rea- 
sons for  their  periodicity,  and  he  has  only  to  apply  the 
same  principles  to  the  analysis  of  particular  cases  and 
phases  of  star  variation.  In  this  engrossing  study,  how- 
ever, two  exceedingly  important  points  must  be  ever 
borne  in  mind,  namely;  (1)  that  a  very  high  percentage 
of  variables  are  abnormals,  and  (2)  that  abnormal  stars 
are  invariably  subnormals.  By  this  I  mean,  that  after 
the  collapse  of  a  star,  whether  by  spontaneous  eruption 
or  by  puncture,  it  for  a  time  drops  to  the  temperature  of 
stars  of  lesser  mass,  and,  secondly,  that  in  this  collapsed 
condition  it  is  bound  to  exhibit  changes  in  its  light — 
especially  fitful  changes.  For  illustration,  compare  the 


270 FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

similar  behavior  of  a  coal  or  wood  fire.  Let  it,  however, 
not  be  concluded  that  only  recently  collapsed  stars  are 
subject  to  these  variations,  for  our  own  sun  is  now  in  a 
normal  stage  for  a  star  of  his  size,  yet  his  sun-spot  cycle 
is  certainly  a  true  variation.  Apropos  of  this  subject, 
let  me  quote  another  passage  from  Doctor  Campbell 
(Stellar  Motions,  p.  283) : 

A  study  of  the  periods  of  variable  stars  brings  out  most 
curious  relations.  The  periods  clearly  have  preferences  for  cer- 
tain lengths.  There  are  a  large  number  whose  variations  from 
maximum  to  minimum  and  back  to  maximum  are  completed  in 
approximately  one  day,  and  many  whose  periods  are  half  a  day 
or  less.  As  the  period  lengthens  from  one  day,  the  number  of 
variables  decreases  rapidly  until  we  reach  the  few  of  eleven-day 
period.  There  are  relatively  very  few  variables  with  periods  be- 
tween 1 1  days  and  1 10  days.  Variable-star  nature  seems  to  abhor 
this  interval.  Beginning  with  no  days,  the  number  of  variables 
increases  rapidly,  with  increase  of  period,  up  to  a  maximum  at 
345  days;  and  the  number  of  variables  then  decreases  rapidly 
until  we  reach  periods  in  length  approximately  450  days.  There 
are  few  with  periods  longer  than  450  days,  and  our  information 
concerning  them  or  their  periods  is  extremely  meagre.  It  is  of 
interest  to  note  that  0 micron  Ceti,  with  average  period  331  days, 
is  but  one  of  a  great  number  which  make  up  the  maximum  near 
345  days. 

Long-period  variable  stars  differ  from  short-period  variables 
in  important  particulars.  The  former  vary  in  brightness  through 
a  wide  range,  usually  from  three  to  eight  visual  magnitudes. 
Short  periods,  on  the  contrary,  have  small  ranges  of  brightness, 
varying  through  0.2  of  a  magnitude  or  less  up  to  a  maximum  of 
1 1/2  magnitudes,  with  few  exceptions.  The  long-period  variables 
are  all  reddish  in  color,  apparently  indicating  that  the  atmos- 
pheres of  these  stars  are  dense,  absorbing  the  violet  rays  and 
transmitting  the  waves  of  longer  length,  or  that  we  are  dealing 
with  low-temperature  radiations.  Short-period  variables,  on  the 
contrary,  are  all  yellow  or  white  in  color.  Chandler  has  found 
that  there  exists  a  relation  between  the  length  of  period  and  red- 
ness. To  quote  him :  "The  redness  of  variable  stars  is,  in  general, 
a  function  of  the  lengths  of  their  periods  of  light  variation.  The 
redder  the  tint,  the  longer  the  period."  Whether  the  conditions 
which  produce  redness  are  also  the  cause  of  long  periods  is  an 
unsettled  question.  These  long-period  red  variables  do  not  con- 
form to  definite  time  schedules.  Their  maxima  may  precede  or 
may  follow  prediction  by  a  fortnight  or  a  full  month,  but  the 
average  length  of  twenty-five  consecutive  periods  will  differ  al- 


THE  STARS  AND  NEBULAE  271 

most  not  at  all  from  the  average  of  the  twenty-five  preceding  or 
following  periods. 

Of  the  reasonably  bright  short-period  variables  there  are 
about  100  which  pass  from  maximum  to  minimum  and  back 
to  maximum  within  less  than  thirty  days;  nearly  all  of  these, 
within  ten  days,  and  some  of  them  within  a  few  hours.  In  all 
these  cases  maxima  and  minima  arrive  on  time,  and  the  periods 
of  most  of  them  are  known  within  a  second.  One  cycle  of  change 
is  almost  exactly  a  duplicate  of  the  preceding  and  following 
cycles. 

The  key  to  all  changes  and  states  of  brightness  in 
stars  obviously  lies  in  two  things,  namely;  (1)  in  a  close 
analysis  and  comparison  of  the  pertinent  spectra,  and 
(2)  in  a  systematic  determination  and  tabulation  of  the 
luminosities  of  the  various  minerals  (metals,  more 
especially)  at  different  temperatures.  I  note  that  some 
work  along  this  latter  line  has  already  been  attempted, 
but  nearly  all  of  it  remains  to  do. 

Entering  into  the  matter  is  this  feature  also :  Inas- 
much as,  according  to  my  version,  the  light  of  a  star 
comes  to  us,  not  from  its  level  surface  but  from  its  as- 
cending geysers,  it  follows  that  the  swifter  the  velocity 
with  which  these  rise  toward  us  the  higher  radial  veloc- 
ity should  the  star's  spectrum  indicate.  Furthermore, 
where  the  star  is  variable  it  should  appear  at  its  maxi- 
mum brightness  when  its  deeper-seated,  more  refractory, 
substances  are  ebulliated ;  which  is  to  say,  when  the  gey- 
sers are  thrown  up  highest  and  fastest.  This  reasonable 
deduction  is  curiously  confirmed  by  the  action  of  the 
classes  of  variables  known  as  Cepheids  and  Geminids; 
speaking  of  which  Doctor  Campbell  says  (p.  306) : 

Interpreted,  we  have  the  astonishing  result  that  every  star 
investigated  has  its  maximum  brilliancy  at  or  very  near  the  time 
of  greatest  velocity  of  approach  toward  the  solar  system,  and  the 
minimum  brilliancy  at  or  very  near  the  time  when  the  bright  star 
in  the  system  has  its  maximum  velocity  of  recession  from  the 
solar  system.  These  are  keys  which  give  promise  of  unlocking 
many  secrets  of  the  Cepheids  and  Geminids.  What  can  be  more 
remarkable  than  that  variable  stars  of  this  class  should  be  at  their 
brightest  when  they  are  moving  rapidly  toward  the  observer  and 
at  their  faintest  when  they  are  moving  rapidly  away  from  him? 


272  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

THE  NEBULAE 

Nebulae  are  at  once  the  ghosts  of  departed  stars  and 
the  corpora  of  other  stars  yet  to  be  born.  They  are  not 
primordial,  but  transitional  forms;  the  first  star  pre- 
ceded the  first  nebula.  They  differ  fundamentally  from 
the  original  cosmic  dust  in  having  passed  through  the 
stellar  crucible  and  consequently  undergone  considerable 
chemical  rearrangement  and  combination.  Further- 
more, although  much  of  it  may  have  been  lost  in  the  cata- 
clysms that  gave  them  birth,  they  retain  in  their  nebulous 
condition  some  remnant  of  the  motion  possessed  by  them 
as  member  stars  of  the  systems  that  have  vanished. 

Owing  to  their  explosive  origin,  nebulae  are  naturally 
capricious  and  nondescript  in  form,  and  there  is  little  to 
be  learned  from  their  incipient  shapes.  Their  sizes,  how- 
ever, vary  so  widely  as  to  demand  categorical  explana- 
tion. I  have  already  recounted  at  length  the  production 
of  the  smaller  nebulae  by  the  spontaneous  explosion  or 
puncturing  of  stars,  and  of  large  nebulae  by  the  bursting 
of  maximum-sized  stars  from  sheer  over-growth.  All 
of  these,  however,  might  perhaps  result  in  rather  too 
simple  and  regular  forms  to  suit  every  nebular  outline, 
and  there  might  remain  also  a  doubt  as  to  whether  the 
destruction  of  even  the  biggest  star  would  commensurate 
with  the  size  of  the  biggest  nebula.  To  account  for  the 
extraordinary  cases,  then,  such  as  Eta  Argus  or  Orion, 
for  example,  I  suggest  that  the  explosion  of  some  mon- 
ster star  in  the  near  vicinity  (as  stellar  distances  go)  of 
a  cluster  of  other  large  stars  might  cause  the  puncture 
of  several  more,  each  succeeding  explosion,  moreover, 
creating  a  new  center  of  destruction.  In  this  way  any 
size  or  irregularity  of  nebula  that  the  heavens  may  pre- 
sent to  the  telescopic  eye  can  be  accounted  for. 

No  sooner  is  the  nebula  spread  out — nay,  while  it  is 
yet  in  the  very  act  of  spreading — it  begins  to  react  to  the 
subtle  but  all-powerful  influence  of  its  stellar  resultant 
and  to  struggle  within  and  upon  itself  for  gravitational 
equilibrium.  This,  of  course,  is  a  tediously  slow  process, 
for  the  reason  that  the  projectile  momenta  of  the  ejected 


THE  STAKS  AND  NEBULAE  273 

material  require  to  be  mastered  and  disciplined.  How- 
ever, fortunately  for  science,  we  do  not  need  to  wait  to 
see  one  particular  case  through  before  arriving  at  con- 
clusions, since  there  are  many  thousands  of  these  curious 
objects  in  the  sky  in  different  stages  of  deployment  and 
evolution,  so  that  by  putting  two  and  two  together  we 
can  write  the  individual  histories  of  all.  Hitherto  the 
teaching  has  been,  that  the  moment  of  momentum  of  any 
segregated  system  cannot  change,  and  that  a  nebula  is 
to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  system  and  amenable  to  the 
rule.  But  that  here,  again,  fact  and  theory  do  not  gibe, 
note  these  words  of  Kapetyn : 

The  phenomenon  of  the  increase  of  velocity  with  the  evolu- 
tional stage  of  the  stars  must  give  rise  to  speculation  as  to  its 
cause.  The  observational  results  contained  in  our  table  naturally 
lead  us  to  conclude  that  the  matter  from  which  the  stars  originate 
must  have  little  or  no  velocity.  How  is  this  possible  under  the 
influence  of  the  combined  attraction  of  the  rest  of  the  system?  Is 
it  not  as  if  gravitation  had  no  effect  on  the  cosmical  matter  in  its 
primordial  state?  If  this  be  so,  as  soon  as  matter  changes  from 
this  state  to  another  in  which  gravity  begins  to  act,  or  to  act  freely, 
motion  will  arise,  and  it  is  evident  that,  as  a  rule,  the  motion  must 
be  accelerated,  at  least  during  immense  periods,  so  that  the  longer 
the  period  lapsed  since  the  birth  of  the  stars  the  greater  must  be 
their  average  velocity. 

It  would  take  us  too  far  afield  to  enter  into  a  detailed 
discussion  of  the  numerous  capricious  forms  of  nebulae, 
caprices  that  the  very  nature  of  their  origin  as  hereinbe- 
fore set  forth  sufficiently  accounts  for;  and  we  shall 
therefore  confine  this  inquiry  to  the  far  more  important 
consideration  of  the  origin  and  significance  of  spiral 
nebulae,  which  obviously  involve  structural  dynamics  of 
basic  character.  These  peculiar  nebulae  so  far  outnumber 
all  others  put  together  that  the  inference  is  unescapable 
that  they  are  the  advanced  stages  of  a  cosmic  process  by 
which  all  nebulae  are  being  molded.  They  are  simply  sys- 
tems of  planetary  bodies  enshrouded  in  star-dust  ex- 
pelled by  the  explosion  of  their  central  sun  or  suns,  which 
they  are  gradually  redding  up  by  their  gravitational  suc- 
tion while  regularly  rounding  their  orbits.  To  visualize 
such  a  spiral  nebula  you  need  only  imagine  our  sun  to  ex- 


274  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

plode  profoundly,  and  then  picture  in  your  mind's  eye 
what  convolutions  should  take  place  in  the  nebula  by  the 
action  of  the  planets.  The  exaggerated  sizes  predicated 
of  some  of  the  nebulae  are  no  hindrance  to  Nature's  dis- 
ciplinary powers.  Be  a  nebula  as  large  as  it  may,  it  still 
has  its  master  stellar  resultant,  it  still  remains  subser- 
vient to  the  inexorable  law  of  equilibrium,  the  law  of  the 
balance-arm,  Kepler's  laivs,  the  law  of  the  logarithmic 
spiral,  the  law  of  gravitation — all  one  and  the  same  in  es- 
sence. By  way  of  exemplifying  these  remarks  let  me 
cull  still  another  extract  from  Professor  Eddington's 
book  (p.  241) : 

It  is  generally  believed  that  the  spirals  predominate  enor- 
mously over  the  other  classes  of  nebulae ;  and,  as  the  whole  num- 
ber of  nebulae  bright  enough  to  be  photographed  has  been  es- 
timated by  E.  A.  Fath  at  160,000,  they  must  form  a  very  num- 
erous class  of  objects.  They  are  seen  by  us  at  all  inclinations, 
some,  like  the  Whirlpool  Nebula,  in  full  front  view,  whilst  others 
are  edge-on  to  us  and  appear  as  little  more  than  a  narrow  line. 
An  example  of  the  latter  kind  is  also  illustrated  in  Plate  IV.  In 
all  cases,  where  it  is  possible  to  discriminate  the  details,  the  spiral 
is  seen  to  be  double-branched,  the  two  arms  leaving  the  nucleus 
at  opposite  points  and  coiling  around  in  the  same  sense.  From 
the  researches  of  E.  v.  d.  Pahlen,  it  appears  that  the  standard 
form  is  a  logarithmic  spiral.  The  arms,  however,  often  present 
irregularities,  and  numerous  knots  and  variations  of  brightness 
occur.  Unlike  the  planetary  and  extended  nebulae  the  spectrum 
shows  a  strong  continuous  background;  bright  lines  and  bands 
are  believed  to  occur,  at  least  in  the  Great  Andromeda  Nebula; 
but  they  are  of  the  character  of  those  found  in  some  of  the  early 
type  stars,  and  are  distinct  from  the  emission  lines  of  the  gaseous 
nebulae. 

The  distribution  of  spiral  nebulae  presents  one  quite  unique 
feature ;  they  actually  shun  the  galactic  regions  and  preponderate 
in  the  neighborhood  of  the  galactic  poles.  The  north  galactic  pole 
seems  to  be  a  more  favoured  region  than  the  south.  This  avoid- 
ance of  the  Milky  Way  is  not  absolute;  but  it  represents  a  very 
strong  tendency. 

In  the  days  before  the  spectroscope  had  enabled  us  to  dis- 
criminate between  different  kinds  of  nebulae,  when  all  classes 
were  looked  upon  as  unresolved  star-clusters,  the  opinion  was 
widely  held  that  these  nebulae  were  "island  universes",  separated 
from  our  own  stellar  system  by  a  vast  empty  space.  It  is  now 
known  that  the  irregular  gaseous  nebulae,  such  as  that  of  Orion, 
are  intimately  related  with  the  stars,  and  belong  to  our  own  sys- 


THE  STARS  AND  NEBULAE  275 

tern;  but  the  hypothesis  has  recently  been  revived  so  far  as  re- 
gards the  spiral  nebulae.  Although  the  same  term  "nebula"  is 
used  to  denote  the  three  classes — irregular,  planetary  and  spiral — 
we  must  not  be  misled  into  supposing  that  there  is  any  close  re- 
lation between  these  objects.  All  the  evidence  points  to  a  wide 
distinction  between  them.  We  have  no  reason  to  believe  that  the 
arguments  which  convince  us  that  the  irregular  and  planetary 
nebulae  are  within  the  stellar  system  apply  to  the  spirals. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  direct  evidence  is  entirely  lacking 
as  to  whether  these  bodies  are  within  or  without  the  stellar  sys- 
tem. Their  distribution,  so  different  from  that  of  all  other  ob- 
jects, may  be  considered  to  show  that  they  have  no  unity  with 
the  rest;  but  there  are  other  bodies,  the  stars  of  Type  M  for  in- 
stance, which  remain  indifferent  to  galactic  influence.  Indeed, 
the  mere  fact  that  spiral  nebulae  shun  the  galaxy  may  indicate 
that  they  are  influenced  by  it.  The  alternative  view  is  that,  lying 
altogether  outside  our  system,  those  that  happen  to  be  in  low 
galactic  latitudes  are  blotted  out  by  great  tracts  of  absorbing  mat- 
ter similar  to  those  which  form  the  dark  spaces  of  the  Milky  Way. 

If  the  spiral  nebulae  are  within  the  stellar  system,  we  have  no 
notion  what  their  nature  may  be.  That  hypothesis  leads  to  a 
full  stop.  It  is  true  that  according  to  one  theory  the  solar  system 
was  evolved  from  a  spiral  nebula,  but  the  term  is  here  used  only 
by  a  remote  analogy  with  such  objects  as  those  depicted  in  the 
Plate.  The  spirals  to  which  we  are  referring  are,  at  any  rate,  too 
vast  to  give  birth  to  a  solar  system,  nor  could  they  arise  from  the 
disruptive  approach  of  two  stars;  we  must  at  least  credit  them 
as  capable  of  generating  a  star  cluster.  *  *  * 

The  two  arms  of  the  spiral  have  an  interesting  meaning  for 
us  in  connection  with  stellar  movements.  The  form  of  the 
arms — a  logarithmic  spiral — has  not  as  yet  given  any  clue  to  the 
dynamics  of  the  spiral  nebulae.  But  though  we  do  not  understand 
the  cause,  we  see  that  there  is  a  widespread  law  compelling  matter 
to  flow  in  these  forms. 

NEBULA-  AND  STAR  SPECTRA 

The  manner  of  the  formation  of  nebulae,  as  just  de- 
scribed, seems  to  me  to  supply  the  key  to  the  peculiarities 
of  thviir  spectra.  For  the  freshly  liberated  gases  will 
be  expelled  to  unequal  distances,  and  the  lighter  elements 
the  farther.  The  outer  envelopes  of  the  nebula  should 
therefore  consist  largely  of  hydrogen  and  similar  gases; 
and  if  these  envelopes  be  sufficiently  dense  so  as  to  be 
opaque  to  the  light  of  the  other  incandescent  elements 


276  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

ranged  behind  them,  the  predominance  of  such  lines  in 
celestial  spectra  should  cease  to  surprise.  Given  suf- 
ficient allowance  of  time  in  which  to  act,  gravitation 
would  of  itself  dispose  the  elements  in  the  same  order, 
that  is,  the  lighter  on  the  outside. 

The  so-called  " green"  nebulae  are  therefore  younger 
than  the  " white",  and,  by  the  same  token,  naturally 
larger,  from  not  having  been  condensed  by  long  exposure 
to  the  cold  of  space.  Their  youthfulness  is  further  at- 
tested by  the  fact  that  less  than  five  per  cent  of  nebulae 
are  green,  a  circumstance  which  opens  interesting  ave- 
nues to  the  determination  of  the  relative  ages  of  nebulae 
in  general.  The  Milky  Way,  being  the  densest  portion 
of  the  sidereal  system,  is  naturally  richest  in  all  sorts 
of  nebulae,  but  particularly  in  the  percentage  of  those 
of  this  green,  or  ultra-gaseous,  type.  The  difference  be- 
tween the  various  classes  of  nebulae  is  therefore  acci- 
dental rather  than  fundamental  or  generic.  The  manner 
of  their  formation  (that  is,  by  explosion)  naturally  ar- 
rests and  masks  such  proper  motions  as  their  parent 
star  may  have  had  just  prior  to  the  catastrophe,  so  that 
the  new-born  nebula  is  obliged  to  "find  itself",  as  it 
were,  and  to  acquire  its  new  motions  by  a  protracted  pro- 
cess of  gravitational  acceleration.  As  the  "dust  from 
the  explosion"  settles  and  clears,  the  nuclei,  which  were 
always  there,  but  only  hidden  from  our  sight,  loom 
gradually  into  view,  and  then  we  perceive  a  spiral  nebu- 
la, evenly  poised  like  a  giant  pinwheel  on  a  center,  re- 
crudescing into  a  new  cycle  of  existence. 

The  double  spectra  of  stars  are  never  visible  except 
where  two  bright  stars  are  knowingly  examined  at  one 
time,  as  in  the  case  of  binaries,  or  where  there  is  evidence 
of  some  special  eruption  in  progress  on  the  body  under 
examination.  In  the  latter  case  the  confusion  of  spectra 
is  due,  I  opine,  to  the  violent  geyser-like  ejection  of  gas 
from  one  section,  while  the  other  part  of  the  surface  re- 
mains normal.  A  suggestive  illustration  of  this  may  be 
seen  in  certain  comets,  which  now  and  again  exhibit  lum- 
inous spurs,  or  jets,  directed  toward  the  sun.  Moreover, 
geyers  that  rise  must  concurrently  fall  back  by  the  action 


THE  STARS  AND  NEBULAE  277 

of  gravity,  thereby  producing  double  spectra,  indicating 
both  plus  and  minus  radial  motions. 

THE  RINGS  OF  SATURN 

In  the  large  sense,  all  celestial  bodies  may  fairly  be 
included  under  the  generic  name  of  stars,  for  even  the 
smallest  of  them  may  conceivably  be  the  embryo  of  a 
Canopus  or  Arcturus  gestating  in  the  fertile  womb  of 
Time.  Such  enormous  planets  as  Jupiter  and  Saturn  are 
not  very  distant  approximations  to  lucid  stars,  as  may  be 
inferred  from  the  phenomena  of  the  " great  red  spot" 
characterizing  the  former,  and  the  "rings"  that  render 
Saturn  so  gloriously  unique  among  telescopic  objects. 
My  explanation  of  these  wonderful  appendages  is  that 
Saturn  has,  in  comparatively  recent  times — probably  as 
late  as  the  Neolithic  age — been  profoundly  shattered  by 
an  explosion,  from  causes  such  as  I  have  outlined,  there- 
by giving  birth  to  a  genuine,  if  relatively  minute,  nebula, 
which,  under  the  tutelage  of  the  Prime  Resultant  subse- 
quently took  on  permanent  vortical  motion. 


XI 


GEAVISTATIC  HEAT 

IN  earlier  chapters  we  have  seen  how  grossly  New- 
tonians have  been  undervaluing  the  functions  of  the 
principle  of  universal  gravitation  in  the  domain  of 
planetary  and  stellar  motions.  They  have  employed  it 
negatively  rather  than  positively;  destructively  rather 
than  constructively;  as  a  clog,  a  brake,  a  restraint,  in- 
stead of  as  a  never-failing  well  of  motive  power.  They  ac- 
cept the  so-called  rectilinear  motions  as  gifts  out  of  the 
occult,  not  in  the  single  particular  of  momentum  or  ve- 
locity, but  in  those  of  adaptation  and  direction  as  well; 
and  they  employ  gravity  merely  to  lasso  and  tether  the 
self -flying  stars  and  planets.  In  the  same  way  they  postu- 
late the  rotations  of  the  sun  and  planets  as  ultimate  facts, 
or,  at  least,  as  conditions  inherited  from  prior  motions 
which  themselves  were  self-existent ;  and  then  they  invent 
an  explanation  of  tides  in  which  the  role  of  gravity  is  to 
retard  those  rotations  and  eventually  to  bring  them  to  a 
standstill. 

Furthermore,  we  have  seen  how,  following  out  this 
medieval  style  of  speculation,  and  perceiving,  but  mis- 
interpreting, the  exquisite  balancing  of  our  system  from 
day  to  day  and  year  to  year,  they  invented  another  ab- 
straction, namely,  the  law  of  conservation  of  moment  of 
momentum,  which  is  conceived  to  control  celestial  mo- 
tions, not  through  the  ordinary  channels  of  physical 
cause  and  effect,  but  by  some  sort  of  teleological  ordina- 
tion or  oversight  vested  in  abstract  energy  as  matter's 


GBAVISTATIC  HEAT  279 


master  and  mentor.  But  this  preposterous  assumption 
fails  to  correlate  the  phenomenon  of  the  moon's  accelera- 
tion, and  the  whole  subject  is  consequently  as  awry  as 
ever. 

It  is  this  paganish  dogma  of  conservation  of  mo- 
ments that  constitutes  the  chief  pillar  of  the  so-called 
doctrine  of 

CONSERVATION  OF  ENERGY 

"The  quantum  of  energy  within  any  isolated  system 
is  absolutely  invariable  in  amount". 

I  peremptorily  challenge  this  teaching  as  a  gross 
libel  on  Nature  and  a  wanton  perversion  of  the  plain 
facts.  Laymen,  in  general,  seem  to  have  imbibed  the  im- 
pression that  in  this  generalization  science  has  struck 
rock-bottom,  and  that  it  constitutes  a  virtual  guarantee 
of  the  perpetuity  of  the  universe  and  a  solid  foundation 
upon  which  to  anchor  the  science  of  physics  for  all  time 
to  come.  No  conclusion  could  be  farther  from  the  truth. 
The  classical  English  work  on  this  theme  is  that  of  Prof. 
Balfour  Stewart,  and  was  first  published  in  the  year  1870. 
This  is  how  he  concludes : 

We  are  led  to  look  to  a  beginning  in  which  the  particles  of 
matter  were  in  a  diffuse  chaotic  state,  but  endowed  with  the 
power  of  gravitation,  and  we  are  led  to  look  to  an  end  in  which 
the  whole  universe  will  be  one  equally  heated  inert  mass,  and 
from  which  everything  like  life  or  motion  or  beauty  will  have 
utterly  gone  away. 

Although  you  and  I  can  have  no  personal  concern  in 
the  ultimate  fate  of  the  physical  universe  so  far  as  our 
present  existence  is  concerned,  yet  I  imagine  that  we  all 
experience  a  greater  or  less  philosophical  interest  in  the 
academic  question  as  to  whether  the  universe  had  a  be- 
ginning and  whether  it  shall  ever  have  an  end.  For  my 
part,  the  doctrine  that  the  universe  is  a  vast  machine  in 
the  act  of  running  down  from  an  original  state  of  wound- 
up-ness to  a  futile  and  inglorious  fiasco,  is  little  short 
of  blasphemy.  Nor  do  I  believe  that  I  am  alone  in  this 
sentiment.  The  perseverance  with  which  all  ranks  of 
scientists  have  sought  for  generations  to  account  for  the 


280  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

well-established  longevity  of  the  sun  leads  me  to  believe 
that  they  also  sense  this  conclusion.  In  a  word,  the  doc- 
trine of  conservation  is  a  priori  false. 

The  commonest  definition  of  energy  is,  "The  power 
that  can  or  does  cause  a  physical  change."  In  their 
efforts  to  visualize  the  operation  of  this  supposititious 
principle  of  conservation  in  the  conduct  of  nature,  it  has 
become  usual  with  scientists  to  liken  the  imaginary  orig- 
inal supply  of  it  to  a  great  reservoir  of  water  advantage- 
ously situated  on  the  summit  of  a  high  mountain  whence 
it  descends  by  degrees,  circulating  and  meandering 
through  material  nature,  appearing  now  in  the  guise  of 
motion,  then  as  heat,  again  as  magnetism,  anon  as  light, 
once  more  as  heat,  and  so  on  back  and  forth,  to  and  fro, 
indiscriminately,  until  the  final  end.  This  descent  from 
higher  to  lower  potential  is  spoken  of  as  the  "degrada- 
tion of  energy",  and  the  end  of  the  whole  process  is  pic- 
tured as  a  dead  sea  below  the  level  of  which  energy  can 
drop  no  further,  and  where  absolute  stagnation  will  pre- 
vail. They  have  given  a  name  to  this  figurative  sea, 
namely,  "Warmetod",  being  the  German  for  "heat- 
death".  For  all  energy  is  conceived  by  them  to  pass 
eventually  into  the  single  form  of  heat.  Indeed,  the  re- 
lation of  heat  to  motion  is  supposed  to  be  so  well  under- 
stood and  established  that  their  equivalents  have  even 
been  reduced  to  tables  to  make  dynamical  computations 
easy.  The  study  itself  is  called  Thermodynamics,  and 
these  are  its  two  so-called  "laws": 

1.  For  every  unit  of  energy  of  any  kind  that 
disappears  a  unit  of  another  kind  appears. 

2.  Heat  can  only  pass  from  a  warmer  to  a 
colder  body. 

You  will  here  perceive  that  between  the  original 
strategic  position  of  the  store  of  energy  while  in  the  reser- 
voir and  its  final  inert  condition  in  the  sea  of  Warmetod, 
there  exists  an  abysmal  distinction.  In  the  latter  state, 
all  kinds  of  energy  having  become  resolved  into  heat 
alone  and  all  bodies  having,  by  construction,  arrived  at 


GRAVISTATIC  HEAT  281 


the  same  neutral  level  of  temperature,  it  is  apparent  that 
Nature  has  betrayed  herself  into  a  stalemate.  Though 
the  sum  of  energy  may  still  exist,  in  contemplation  of 
theory,  it  is,  by  the  same  theory,  recognized  as  all  fore- 
doomed one  day  to  become  forever  inert  and  useless. 
Conservationists  themselves  distinguish  between  kinds 
of  energy  by  calling  the  higher  levels  or  potentials,  as 
contrasted  with  those  of  lower  grade,  available,  and 
those  of  the  lower,  unavailable.  That  is  to  say,  all  en- 
ergy except  that  at  the  very  foot  of  the  course  is  held  to 
be  at  once  available  and  unavailable — available  as  to  the 
lower  part  of  the  runway,  unavailable  as  to  its  upper 
reaches.  As  the  descent  is  forever  going  on,  they  tell 
us,  the  quantum  of  unavailable  energy  is  constantly  in- 
creasing at  the  expense  of  the  available.  Here,  then,  in 
this  general  sense,  as  in  the  special  case  of  gravitation, 
we  are  taught  that  the  primordial,  the  positive,  the  mo- 
tive forces  of  the  universe  of  matter  are  losing  their  vir- 
tue and  that  nature  is  in  an  irremediable  state  of  decay. 

The  extremes  to  which  scientists  have  shown  them- 
selves willing  to  go  in  the  pursuit  of  this  execrable  doc- 
trine are  all  but  incredible,  extending  even  so  far  as  to 
the  open  and  unreserved  repudiation  of  the  principle  of 
universal  gravitation  itself!  Let  me  ask  the  kind  reader 
to  turn  now  again  to  the  passage  previously  quoted  from 
Prof.  Soddy  (p.  4,  ante)  before  proceeding  further. 

In  these  lines  Prof.  Soddy  talks  as  impassionedly  as 
if  he  had  a  grievance  against  Gravitation  for  having  too 
long  imposed  on  scientists  as  a  real  thing  instead  of  a 
mere  assemblage  of  letters.  In  Mr.  Soddy 's  gospel,  posi- 
tion and  power  are  interchangeable  terms,  while  gravity 
itself  is  a  low  impostor  that  should  be  excluded  from  the 
polite  purlieus  of  scientific  language.  But  if  position, 
as  such,  is  power,  then  the  energy  positioned  in  Warme- 
tod  is  not  properly  char  act  erizable  as  energy  at  all;  for 
how  can  that  be  energy  which  can  never  in  the  future  by 
any  possibility  do  work;  or  how  can  position  continue  to 
be  energy  when,  even  in  this  technical  sense,  it  has  ceased 
to  be?  To  talk  of  energy  as  becoming  unavailable  for 
all  time  is  to  assert  its  becoming  non-existent  absolutely. 


282  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

There  are  but  three  possible  hypotheses  by  which  the 
relation  of  matter  and  energy  may  be  explained,  namely; 
first,  by  construing  them  as  identical;  secondly,  by  re- 
garding them  as  separate  entities,  and,  thirdly,  by  sup- 
posing energy  to  be  a  state  of  matter,  or,  in  other  words, 
that  it  is  only,  the  way  matter  has  of  manifesting  itself 
to  our  senses.  Of  these  hypotheses  the  first  was  known 
as  the  theory  of  Phlogiston  and  prevailed  all  through  the 
lifetime  of  Newton;  the  second  is  that  now  universally 
taught  in  the  schools,  and  the  third  is  my  own. 

In  the  narrow  limits  of  current  theory  the  marvel- 
ous force  of  gravitation  cannot  be  made  to  fit,  so  the  doc- 
trinaires are  little  by  little  sophistrizing  it  altogether  out 
of  existence.  In  their  philosophy  gravitation  is  a  tether, 
a  brake,  a  clog.  In  the  field  of  planetary  motions  they 
have  even  cast  doubt  upon  the  actuality  of  central  at- 
tractions, because  they  cannot  reconcile  it  with  the  secu- 
lar acceleration  of  the  moon.  In  thermodynamics  they 
have  degraded  it  into  a  mere  accident  of  situation.  At 
best,  they  treat  it  as  a  reservoir  of  power  soon  drained, 
instead  of  as  the  never-failing  well  it  really  is.  They 
say  it  is  not  creative;  that  whatever  it  is,  it  will  all  even- 
tually be  converted  into  heat  and  perish  in  stagnation 
and  triviality. 

In  my  philosophy,  on  the  contrary,  gravitation  is  the 
marvel  of  all  marvels,  the  immortal  fecund  mother  of  all 
other  so-called  forces  in  nature.  When  gravitation  first 
entered  into  matter,  it  made  every  part  of  it  a  permanent 
magnet,  unchangeable,  imperishable,  and  obedient  to  an 
unswerving  law.  Whether  a  given  mass  be  hot  or  cold, 
gaseous,  solid  or  liquid,  separate  or  in  combination,  its 
inherent  power  to  attract  and  be  attracted  remains  for- 
ever identically  the  same.  The  power  of  gravitation  can- 
not be  crowded  into  matter,  nor  can  it  be  abstracted  from 
it — like  the  widow's  cruse,  the  world  of  matter  preserves 
its  fulness.  Gravitation  needs  not  to  be  fed,  nor  rested, 
nor  fostered.  Every  instant  it  wells  up  afresh.  The  at- 
traction that  the  earth  exerts  today  upon  the  moon,  the 
sun  upon  his  planets,  the  stars  upon  each  other,  is  not 
the  same  that  will  be  employed  to-morrow  or  next  day; 


GRAVISTATIC  HEAT  283 


the  supply  for  the  future,  Nature  will  evolve  as  it  is  re- 
quired. The  attraction  of  gravitation  exercised  to-day 
had  no  existence  yesterday,  whether  as  such,  or  as  heat, 
or  as  electricity,  or  as  any  other  entity.  Though  always 
flowing  afresh,  its  supply  is  not  being  in  the  least  de- 
pleted, nor  is  Nature  being  despoiled  of  anything  beyond. 
Further  than  this,  the  force  of  gravitation  is  multiple. 
The  earth,  for  example,  attracts  the  sun  no  more  and  no 
less  than  it  would  were  the  moon  out  of  the  way,  yet  it 
attracts  that  body  too,  to  say  nothing  of  all  the  other  ce- 
lestial bodies — each  of  them  with  precisely  the  same 
strength  as  though  only  the  two  existed.  Again,  the 
power  of  gravitation  makes  itself  felt  over  the  abysses 
of  space  instantly,  not,  as  in  the  case  even  of  light  itself, 
after  a  space  of  seconds  or  years.  Finally,  it  cannot  be 
eclipsed,  as  by  the  interposition  of  the  earth  between  the 
sun  and  the  moon.  Ponder  this  marvel!  Force  emanat- 
ing out  of  nothing,  uniform,  all  pervading,  instantaneous 
in  action,  eternal, — the  Hercules  condemned  forever  to 
perform  the  labors  of  the  universe;  to  hold  and  draw  the 
planets  in  their  orbits;  to  turn  them  round  their  axes;  to 
stoke  the  suns;  to  heap  the  tides;  to  scatter  the  rains;  yes, 
even  to  point  the  mariner's  compass  with  the  magnetism 
of  tidal  friction!  An  unthinking,  rigidly-conditioned 
force,  yet  not  ending  in  monotony  or  ruin,  as  modern 
science  teaches  it  must,  but  emerging  in  order,  automa- 
tism, perpetuity,  and  kaleidoscopic  change!  Has  cur- 
rent science  made  the  most  of  this  amazing  energy? 

Having  cast  about  so  long,  yet  vainly,  for  an  expla- 
nation of  the  persistency  of  the  solar  heat,  why  not  pa- 
tiently consider  the  merits  of  gravitation  as  a  last  resort? 
Behold  the  sun  tempestuously  ebullient  after  a  service 
of  more  than  a  hundred  thousand  times  the  span  of  hu- 
man history,  when,  as  Newcomb  has  said,  were  it  an  or- 
dinary body  it  would  have  cooled  off  in  a  trifle  of  4,000 
years.  Behold  Jupiter  and  Saturn,  elder  brothers  of  our 
earth,  that,  according  to  the  doctrinaires,  were  set  out  to 
cool  ten  million  centuries  ago  in  the  absolute  zero  of 
space,  yet  even  they,  mere  dwarfs  as  compared  to  the  sun, 
are  still  glowing  with  fervid  heat.  Behold  the  starry 


284 FBOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

host,  whose  genesis  lies  in  darkest  shadow;  yet  in  the 
present  we  see  them  brilliant  and  serene  without  a  hint 
of  senility  about  them.  Surely  there  is  a  principle  of 
vitality  about  this  universe  of  ours  that  the  wise  have 
overlooked! 

In  the  commercial  field  scientists  have  for  years  been 
seeking  to  devise  methods  and  means  for  economizing 
mechanical  power.  To  some  extent  they  have  succeeded, 
but  they  have  invariably  discovered  that,  for  all  their 
skill  and  care,  every  successive  step  in  the  processes  of 
conversion, — from  coal  to  heat,  from  heat  to  steam,  from 
steam  to  mechanical  motion,  from  this  motion  into  elec- 
tricity, etc., — there  is  a  leakage  which  defies  fathoming. 
Yet  in  spite  of  their  failure  to  trace  these  losses  and  to 
demonstrate  quantitatively  the  verity  of  the  doctrine  of 
conservation,  they  ignore  these  lessons  entirely  and  cling 
unreasoningly  to  this  their  pet  delusion.  They  seem  to 
proceed  on  the  assumption  that  phenomena  must  adapt 
themselves  to  theory,  not  theory  to  the  phenomena. 
Now,  a  little  reflection  ought  to  convince  all  that  in  in- 
animate nature  these  transformations,  which  are  continu- 
ally and  uninterruptedly  occuring,  are  likewise  amenable 
to  just  such  leakages  as  these,  and  that  were  the  doctrine 
indeed  true,  the  descent  from  high  potential  to  the  low- 
est should  run  its  course  so  fast  as  scarcely  to  last  a  year. 
Given  a  mountain  reservoir  with  the  sluices  left  wide 
open,  the  rush  for  the  sea  would  be  short,  swift  and  ruin- 
ous; given  a  highland  brook  continuously  replenished 
by  the  rains,  the  flow  of  power  will  be  equable  and  peren- 
nial. The  mills  of  Nature  are  not  driven  ~by  an  aval- 
anche, but  by  steady  evolvement  of  power. 

Our  doctrinaires  tell  us  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
creative  energy  in  nature.  They  construe  the  operation 
of  an  infinity  of  years  as  if  it  were  but  a  momentary  act. 
They  tell  us  that  the  earth  attracts  the  moon  and  holds 
her  to  her  course,  but  they  fail  to  recognize  that  the 
gravitational  power  which  the  earth  will  bring  to  bear 
during  the  next  turn  of  the  satellite  does  not  yet  exist,  but 
must  spring  into  existence  during  the  ensuing  thirty 
days.  Where,  I  demand,  shall  it  come  from?  From  an 


GRAVISTATIC  HEAT  285 


accumulated  store  of  energy?  If  so,  how  comes  it  that 
this  store  has  not  already  exhausted  itself  in  the  eons 
past?  How  comes  it  that  there  has  not  been  during  as- 
tronomical history  even  the  slightest  evidence  of  the  de- 
pletion of  this  strange  power!  It  ought  to  be  plain  to 
every  thinking  mind  that  gravitation  is  creative  in  its 
nature,  creative  because  matter  is  dynamical  in  essence. 
By  some  strange  quirk  the  scientists  have  excogi- 
tated the  lunacy  that  when  a  weight  comes  to  rest  upon 
the  ground,  gravity  is  done  for,  that  its  energy  ceases. 
They  reason  thus  because  they  have  trained  themselves 
to  confound  the  idea  of  space  with  the  antithetical  idea  of 
power;  in  fact  they  actually  identify  these  two  diverse 
things  in  their  processes  of  ratiocination.  Let  me  ask, 
what  is  it  that  moves  the  train — the  locomotive,  or  the 
track?  The  locomotive,  of  course.  Now  what  is  it  that 
causes  the  apple  to  fall  from  the  tree — gravity,  or  the 
free  space  between  the  twig  and  the  ground?  Gravity, 
of  course.  Does  gravity,  then,  act  on  the  apple  only 
while  the  latter  is  in  the  state  of  falling,  or  did  it  not  also 
pull  on  it  while  it  was  yet  on  the  tree,  and  will  it  not  con- 
tinue to  pull  upon  it  forever,  after  it  has  found  a  perman- 
ent resting  place  on  the  earth?  I  expect  you  to  answer  in 
the  affirmative.  We  all  agree,  then,  I  trust,  that  the  ef- 
fective cause  for  the  fall  that  has  taken  place  is  not  so 
many  feet  of  bare  space,  but  gravity,  be  gravity  what  it 
may.  Now  gravity  has  this  peculiar  property,  that  it 
waxes  with  exertion,  not  wanes ;  that  is  to  say,  its  force 
increases  indefinitely  with  the  shortening  of  the  distance. 
The  attraction  upon  the  apple  when  lying  on  the  ground 
is  therefore  stronger  than  when  it  still  clung  to  the  tree, 
stronger  than  when  it  was  in  the  act  of  falling,  stronger 
than  at  any  time  in  the  past.  Yet  the  Conservationists 
say,  in  effect: 

"Given  this  force  known  to  be  capable  of  producing 
a  specific  mechanical  result,  then  if  the  same  be  increased 
to  a  maximum  and  so  maintained  indefinitely,  its  effects 
will  altogether  cease  and  disappear,  nor  will  any  other 
sort  of  mechanical  consequences  appear  in  their  place !" 


286  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

Furthermore,  Conservationists  in  their  blind  zeal 
confuse  the  element  of  force  with  the  element  of  veloc- 
ity, and  claim,  for  example,  that  a  mountain  resting  on  its 
base  produces  no  mechanical  effect,  for  the  bare  reason 
that  it  is  not  in  motion.  The  formula  by  which  they  thus 
conjure  is  this: 

E  =  1/2  MV2 

in  which  M  is  the  mass,  V  the  velocity,  and  E  the  energy. 
Obviously,  if  there  be  no  movement,  V  becomes  zero,  and 
the  substitution  of  this  value  in  the  equation,  be  the  mass 
as  big  as  it  may,  will  reduce  the  energy  to  nothing.  No- 
body denies  that  gravitation  continues  to  go  on  drawing; 
but  we  are  told  that,  once  settled  on  a  permanent  base, 
the  weight  of  an  object,  whether  a  mole-hill  or  a  moun- 
tain, counts  for  nought. 

Scientists,  furthermore,  divide  available  energy  into 
two  sorts — potential,  or  that  which  stands  in  reserve 
against  future  use,  and  kinetic,  or  that  which  is  in  the  act 
of  doing  work,  or  being  converted.  In  order  to  get  the 
scientific  view  authoritatively  before  the  reader  let  me 
present  this  extract  from  the  illuminating  essay  on  En- 
ergy by  Professor  John  Gall,  formerly  of  Canning  Col- 
lege, Lucknow : 

A  reservoir  of  water  situated  on  the  summit  of  a  hill  is  more 
valuable  than  the  same  body  of  water  at  a  low  level.  This  is 
owing  to  the  store  of  energy  which  it  possesses  in  virtue  of  its 
position ;  and  as  the  water  descends  this  energy  may  be  turned  to 
good  account  in  driving  machinery.  If  the  reservoir  is  situated 
at  a  lower  level  than  the  machinery  the  water  becomes  useless 
as  a  motive  power.  A  cross-bow  when  bent,  the  main-spring  of 
a  watch  coiled  up,  a  labourer  primed  for  work  with  a  sufficient 
supply  of  food,  are  instances  where  the  energy  is  due  to  position. 

We  have  already  seen  that  when  a  body  is  projected  verti- 
cally upwards  it  possesses  kinetic  energy  in  virtue  of  its  motion. 
As  it  ascends  its  velocity  and  consequently  its  kinetic  energy  de- 
creases, but  at  every  point  of  its  ascent  it  has  gained  a  quantity 
of  potential  energy  equivalent  to  the  kinetic  energy  lost,  and  when 
the  body  ceases  to  rise,  the  kinetic  energy  vanishes  and  the  energy 
becomes  wholly  potential.  In  every  position  of  the  body  the  rela- 
tion expressed  by  the  following  equality  always  holds  good: — 
Kinetic  Energy  -f-  Potential  Energy  =  A  constant. 


GRAVISTATIC  HEAT  287 


When  the  projected  body  begins  to  ascend,  its  energy  is  en- 
tirely kinetic,  because  while  at  the  surface  of  the  earth  the  po- 
tential energy  of  a  heavy  body  is  zero.  On  reaching  its  highest 
point  the  kinetic  energy  has  vanished,  and  potential  energy  ap- 
pears in  its  place.  As  the  body  descends,  the  energy  is  again  re- 
converted from  potential  to  kinetic.  In  positions  intermediate  be- 
tween the  highest  and  lowest  points  the  energy  consists  partly  of 
one  kind  and  partly  of  the  other,  and  as  the  body  moves  from  one 
point  to  another,  a  constant  transformation  of  one  form  of  energy 
into  the  other  is  constantly  taking  place,  subject  always  to  the 
condition  that  the  sum  of  the  two  remain  constant. 

You  will  perceive  from  this  statement  that  clearance 
for  fall,  not  the  power  that  causes  the  fall,  is  looked  upon 
as  the  vital  factor.  Is  not  this  prima  facie  absurd! 
Gravity,  it  is  admitted,  pulls  the  object  downward  before 
the  fall  began,  during  the  fall,  and  after  the  fall,  but  the 
Conservationists  deny  to  its  operation  the  production  of 
any  effect  save  for  the  sliort  span  of  the  fall  and  the  brief 
moment  of  the  settling  of  the  object  after.  It  is  a  clear 
case  of  mistaking  identities.  Proceeding  on  this  mani- 
festly false  tack,  our  doctrinaires  have  in  all  their  theor- 
izing assumed  the  force  of  gravity  to  be  innocuous  and 
sterile  just  when,  under  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  law  of 
the  inverse  square,  it  rises  to  its  maximum!  Let  us 
pursue  this  train  of  reflection  further : 

Knowing,  as  we  cannot  fail  of  doing,  that  it  is  in  the 
nature  of  gravity  to  be  sleeplessly  active  in  the  control 
and  movement  of  stars  and  systems,  does  it  not  appeal 
to  your  reason  that  it  should  be  equally  persistent  and 
cosmically  productive  in  situations  where  molar  move- 
ment is  obstructed?  Is  it  good  sense  to  say,  or  to  sup- 
pose, that  by  bringing  power  and  matter  in  great  quan- 
tity together,  there  must  ensue  an  end  to  activity  and  that 
Nature  thus  stupidly  engineers  her  own  defeat?  If 
gravitation  can  whirl  about  stellar  masses  with  ease  and 
expedition,  do  you  see  no  logical  reason  for  assuming  a 
priori  that,  balked  in  producing  molar  movements,  it 
may  under  the  wise  management  of  Nature  be  diverted 
to  the  no  less  vital  task  of  stimulating  molecular  excita- 
tion and  thereby  generating  heat? 


288  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

Behold  there  an  enormous  mountain  of  a  billion-tons 
weight.  Put  in  its  place  an  enclosed  cone  of  papier 
mache  of  like  dimensions ;  what  effect,  if  any,  should  such 
substitution  exert  upon  the  supporting  shelf?  Accord- 
ing to  the  interpretation  of  the  Conservationists,  there 
would  be  no  effect  whatsoever  experienced  by  the  shelf, 
except,  possibly  that  its  natural  elasticity  might  slightly 
raise  its  level  with  the  removal  of  the  weight.  The  real 
mountain,  say  they,  produces  no  thermal  results  so  long 
as  it  maintains  its  level  and  sinks  no  lower,  for  it  is  not 
the  poiver  that  counts  but  the  space  through  which  that 
power  acts!  It  is  upon  this  particular  dictum  that  the 
Helmholtzian  theory  of  the  source  of  solar  heat  is 
founded,  and  that  the  future  degradation  of  the  luminous 
stars  into  cold,  dark  clinkers  is  predicated.  In  thus  fail- 
ing to  distinguish  between  the  dynamical  potentialities 
of  diversified  weights  and  treating  them  all  as  precisely 
equal,  scientists  have,  in  my  opinion,  been  guilty  of  a 
grave  and  incalculably  costly  blunder. 

The  spectroscope  informs  us  that  a  rare  few  of  the 
nebulae  are  self-luminous — they  must  therefore  be  hot. 
How  came  they  so  ?  What  more  natural  than  to  attrib- 
ute the  phenomenon  to  the  grinding  and  crushing  of  the 
inner  substances  by  their  parent  stars,  not  into  powder, 
simply,  but  into  molecules,  atoms,  electrons — as  fine  as 
you  will,  even  to  the  point  of  torpedoing  themselves  into 
these  great  glowing  mists'? 

In  a  previous  chapter  I  pointed  out  the  property  of 
substances  in  general  to  explode  by  percussion  or  by 
sheer  pressure ;  leaving  in  some  minds,  perhaps,  a  lurking 
doubt  as  to  whether  the  principle  of  the  critical  point  of 
gases  can  come  into  play  unless  a  very  high  temperature 
be  first  provided.  My  contention  here  is,  that,  even  were 
the  cosmic  body  composed  solely  of  solid,  refractory  ma- 
terials that  had  attained  a  condition  of  stable  compact- 
ness, the  process  of  the  generation  of  heat  would  contin- 
uously go  on  forever.  In  my  conception,  hotness  is  the 
natural  state  of  matter  when  under  extreme  pressure. 
Compression  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  perpetual  im- 
pact. Let  me  make  this  matter  certain: 


GRAVISTATIC  HEAT  289 


If  a  pound-weight  were  to  alight  on  your  toes  by  fall- 
ing from  a  height  of  six  feet  or  so,  it  would  cause  you  a 
moment  of  sharp  agony;  but  supposing  no  bones  to  be 
fractured,  the  pain  would  be  soon  over.  Suppose,  again, 
that  you  were  to  allow  the  weight  to  drop  from  precisely 
the  same  height  as  before,  but  this  time  on  the  pan  of  a 
spring  balance  (you  noting  at  the  same  moment  the  force 
of  the  impact  as  registered  on  the  scale)  and  that  you 
should  then  procure  a  boulder  of  this  greater  weight  and 
merely  rest  it  on  your  toes — would  you  not  suffer  in  this 
case,  not  merely  for  a  passing  instant,  but  for  as  long  as 
the  boulder  remained  in  position^  Most  certainly !  But 
the  Conservationists,  were  they  to  argue  consistently 
with  their  pet  dogma,  should  say  that  the  boulder  would 
pain  you  only  in  its  first  placement,  when  it  was  yet  in 
motion ;  but  that  afterward,  when  it  had  become  motion- 
less, it  could  not  hurt  any  longer,  because  then  it  would 
have  no  velocity  and  consequently  possess  no  energy, 
whether  for  paining  or  for  generating  heat ! 

Now,  while  it  is  quite  true  that  matter  does  not  sense 
pain  as  humans  do,  yet  it  (  or  its  molecules)  experiences 
in  a  state  of  compression  certain  irritations  analogous  to 
pain,  just  as  it  does  when  struck  a  blow.  Compression, 
by  forcing  the  molecules  closer  together,  excites  them  to 
reaction,  multiplies  their  collisions,  and  produces  the  con- 
dition we  call  heat.  Though  our  mountain  may  no  longer 
be  sinking,  yet  as  long  as  it  remains  superposed  on  its 
shelf,  its  basal  strata  will  endure  constant  strain  and  de- 
velope  a  perennial  supply  of  warmth,  which,  despite  the 
natural  cooling  of  the  surface,  will  maintain  the  average 
temperature  of  the  mass  above  that  of  its  surroundings 
until  the  end  of  time.  To  some  minds  long  accustomed 
to  think  otherwise,  this  statement  may  sound  paradox- 
ical, but  the  discovery  of  radium  a  score  of  years  ago 
should  serve  as  a  lesson  to  them  not  to  be  too  skeptical. 
The  phenomena  of  Nature  loudly  proclaim  its  truth — the 
boiling  sun,  the  lucid  stars,  the  volcanic  earth,  the  fervid 
Jupiter,  Saturn,  Uranus  and  Neptune — or  do  they  not  1 

Static  pressure,  I  repeat,  or,  more  specifically,  gravi- 
static  pressure,  is  a  perpetual  generator  of  cosmic  heat 


290 FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

and  makes  for  the  permanency  of  the  physical  universe 
as  we  now  behold  it.  Collisions  and  impacts,  on  the  con- 
trary, breathe  of  the  accidental,  the  transitory,  the  in- 
sufficient. The  tacks  that  draftsmen  use  may  easily  be 
driven  into  the  board  by  merely  pressing  the  thumb  upon 
them,  but  they  can  just  as  well  be  driven  in  with  blows  of 
a  hammer.  Once  driven  home,  you  may  either  continue 
the  pressing  or  the  pounding,  but  the  tack  goes,  and  can 
go,  no  farther.  Science  says  this  surplus  pressure  is  not 
conserved,  but  that  the  excess  blows  are.  I  take  issue 
with  this  narrow  interpretation  and  submit  the  following 
reasons  for  your  consideration: 

The  force  of  a  hammer  blow  may  be  ascertained  in 
terms  of  dead  weight  by  merely  letting  fall  on  the  pan  of 
a  spring  scale  and  noting  the  poundage  it  registers.  With 
such  blows  as  this  you  may  drive  in  a  stake,  or  beat  an 
anvil,  or  do  many  other  things  you  might  have  in  mind  to 
do.  If  you  cared  to,  you  would  not  need  to  drive  in  the 
stake  with  the  hammer  at  all,  but  you  could  hunt  up  a 
boulder  exactly  the  weight  of  the  hammer-blow  as  indi- 
cated on  the  scale,  and  this  boulder,  if  merely  rested  on 
the  top  of  the  stake  ought  to  press  it  into  the  ground 
quite  as  surely.  If  instead  of  driving  in  the  stake,  you 
chose  to  beat  the  anvil,  you  will  not  displace  the  latter, 
but  you  will  heat  it.  Now,  if  you  please,  put  the  hammer 
aside  and  bring  the  boulder  and  lay  it  on  the  anvil  and 
you  will  find  that  the  boulder  will  warm  the  anvil  as  much 
as  did  the  hammer-blows — and  continuously.  And  why 
should  this  not  be  so?  For  how,  I  pray,  is  the  anvil  go- 
ing to  distinguish  between  a  rapid  succession  of  such 
blows,  divided  by  no  interval,  and  absolute  continuity  of 
the  bearing  weight?  It  is  no  more  necessary  for  gravi- 
tation to  go  the  roundabout  way  of  first  causing  a  fall  in 
order  to  bring  about  the  impact  as  a  means  of  producing 
heat  than  it  was  for  Charles  Lamb's  Chinese  to  fashion 
the  fagots  into  a  hut  before  starting  the  blaze  for  the 
roasting  of  the  pig. 

It  is  a  customary  thing  in  arguing  for  the  doctrine  of 
the  conservation  of  energy  to  cite  the  illustration  of  rais- 


GRAVISTATIC  HEAT  291 


ing  a  dumb-bell  and  directly  letting  it  drop  to  the  ground, 
and  confining  the  attention  to  this  simple  case.  It  is  ex- 
plained, that  in  elevating  the  bell  the  lifter  expends  pre- 
cisely the  same  number  of  units  of  muscular  energy  which 
the  bell  will  develop  in  thermal  units  on  being  let  go  and 
striking  the  ground.  "Muscular  units  expended,  are 
compensated  by  positional  units  gained,  and  positional 
units  lost,  in  their  turn,  are  compensated  by  thermal 
units  gained;  and  so  on."  But  suppose  the  bell  is  too 
heavy  for  you  to  so  much  as  budge? 

Ah,  that  is  a  question  which  you  are  supposed  to  be 
polite  enough  never  to  ask.  It  seems  as  plain  as  can  be 
that  when  you  lift  the  dumb-bell,  you  use  up  a  certain 
amount  of  muscular  energy ;  but  it  seems  just  as  evident, 
too,  does  it  not,  that  when  you  pull  and  pull  on  an  iron 
stanchion,  or  try  to  lift  a  heavy  rail,  without  effecting 
the  slightest  movement  in  either,  you  are  quite  as  cer- 
tainly expending  muscular  energy!  In  the  case  of  the 
dumb-bell  our  good  friends  tell  us  these  units  of  muscular 
energy  are  replaced  in  the  shape  of  kinetic  energy  by  the 
fall  of  the  bell,  thus  balancing  the  dynamical  ledger ;  but 
they  do  not  volunteer  as  to  how  they  are  compensated  in 
the  second  instance. 

Doubtless  you  have  seen  a  team  of  horses  straining 
to  overcome  a  rise  in  the  road  and  being  lashed  merci- 
lessly by  a  brutal  driver.  Ten  minutes  pass,  perhaps, 
with  no  progress  made,  and  the  mired  wheels  stick  fast. 
Had  all  gone  well  and  the  hill  been  surmounted,  we  should 
be  told  the  old  fable  of  energy  compensations ;  but  not  so 
in  this  case.  These  Conservationists  know  when  ignor- 
ance is  bliss,  silence  golden,  and  discretion  the  better 
part  of  valor.  Possibly,  too,  you  may  have  seen  a  horse 
bending  every  effort  to  hoist  a  trio  of  bales  tied  to  a  pul- 
ley; half  way  up  something  goes  wrong,  the  horse  pulls 
as  hard  as  ever,  but  the  load  refuses  to  rise.  What  sus- 
tains the  load  thus  in  mid-air?  Cut  the  traces  and  you 
will  see  that  it  is  the  pull  of  the  animal.  In  fine,  these 
examples  demonstrate  that  energy  is  often  expended, 
lost,  destroyed  in  merely  maintaining,  or  not  altering, 
the  status. 


292  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

Again,  suppose,  in  passing  along  a  walk  flanking  the 
precipitous  side  of  a  hill,  you  should  notice  a  loose  stone 
just  above  your  head  menacing  the  safety  of  passers-by 
and  that  you  should  reach  up  and  gently  lower  the  stone 
to  the  level  of  the  walk.  In  this  case,  by  lowering  the 
stone  slowly  and  by  laying  it  softly  on  the  ground  you 
will  have  done  two  things;  (1)  destroyed  so  many  units 
of  your  muscular  energy,  and  (2)  destroyed  about  an 
equal  number  of  the  potential  units  of  the  stone — but 
without,  however,  adding  a  single  unit  of  any  other  sort 
of  energy  in  substitution.  Or,  by  way  of  variation,  sup- 
pose you  were  to  lift  the  dumb-bell  to  arm's  length,  but 
instead  of  dropping  it  or  lowering  it  at  once  you  were  to 
keep  holding  it  aloft  until  you  grew  weary,  and  then  to 
lower  it  again  with  the  utmost  slowness, — could  any 
Stewart  or  Soddy  convince  you  that  the  energy  units 
gained  by  this  stunt  exactly  counterbalance  the  muscular 
effort  you  have  put  forth? 

Energy  being,  according  to  my  conception,  an  act  or 
manifestation  of  matter  itself  instead  of  an  intangible 
something  acting  through  matter,  it  follows  that  these 
acts  or  manifestations  are  indefinitely  repetitive  in  char- 
acter. As  long  as  matter  exists  it  will  manifest  itself. 
Energy  is  not  matter,  nor  matter  energy,  but  MATTER  is 

ENERGETIC. 

To  illustrate :  It  is  Newton  himself  who  is  entitled 
to  the  credit  of  originating  the  conception  that  the 
earth's  gravity  holds  the  moon  in  perpetual  leash,  and 
that  were  this  power  to  run  out  or  forget  to  act,  even  for 
a  second,  the  moon  would  fly  off  into  space.  What,  then, 
can  be  plainer  than  that  the  unique  force  of  gravitation 
is  creative,  that  it  evolves  afresh  in  every  new  instant  of 
time,  and  that  they  who  deny  the  existence  of  such  a 
source  of  vitality  and  recuperation  in  Nature  simply  mis- 
state the  fact?  But  Newton  confined  his  attention  to 
only  one  side  of  the  shield;  he  considered  only  the  mat- 
ter of  centripetal  force,  but  the  centrifugal  he  left  to  tele- 
ological  speculations.  Now,  a  creative  force  on  one  side 
serving  as  the  "action"  can  be  evenly  counterbalanced 
on  the  other  only  by  a  like  creative  force  to  serve  as  the 


GRAVISTATIC  HEAT  293 


"reaction."  The  centrifugal  force,  too,  then,  must  evolve 
freshly  out  of  Nature,  and  should  it  run  out  instead  of 
the  central  attraction,  the  solar  system  would  promptly 
collapse  and  crash  together.  In  fine,  in  order  to  keep 
the  planets  gyrating  around  the  sun — that  is  to  say, 
merely  to  make  them  change  their  places,  without  at  the 
same  time  either  adding  to  or  taking  away  any  of  their 
so-called  "energy  of  position" — demands  the  constant 
exercise  of  those  two  enormous  sources  of  creative  en- 
ergy, namely,  the  sun's  gravity,  and  the  stellar  resultant. 
The  present  teaching  is,  that  to  start  a  body  and  to  stop 
it  require  the  putting  forth  of  equal  amounts  of  energy, 
but  that  the  transportation  in  betiveen  requires  none.  I 
maintain,  in  opposition,  that  change  of  place  of  any  physi- 
cal body,  even  along  the  level,  involves  a  positive  destruc- 
tion of  units  of  energy  (using  this  term  in  the  conven- 
tional sense).  In  brief,  the  activities  of  nature — of 
translation  as  well  as  of  warmth — literally  consume  en- 
ergy, and  to  offset  this  loss,  I  say,  nature  must  and  does 
evolve  it. 

In  order  to  show  the  reader  how  near  scientists  have 
already  come  to  laying  hold  upon  these  truths,  had  it  not 
been  for  their  obscuration  by  the  doctrine  of  conserva- 
tion, let  me  quote  two  passages  from  standard  works. 
The  first  of  these  is  taken  from  Ganot  's  Physics,  Art.  465, 
(Ed.  of  1877,  retained  in  that  of  1910). 

If  a  body  be  so  compressed  that  its  density  is  increased,  its 
temperature  rises  according  as  the  volume  diminishes.  Joule  has 
verified  this  in  the  case  of  water  and  of  oil  which  were  exposed 
to  pressures  of  15  to  25  atmosphers.  In  the  case  of  water  at  1.2° 
C,  increase  of  pressure  caused  lowering  of  temperature,  a  result 
which  agrees  with  the  fact  that  water  contracts  by  heat  at  this 
temperature.  Similarly,  when  weights  are  laid  on  metallic  pillars, 
heat  is  evolved,  and  absorbed  when  they  are  removed. 

The  second  of  the  extracts  is  to  be  found  in  Profes- 
sor Eichard  A.  Proctor's  Our  Place  Among  Infinities 
(pp.  117,  118): 

At  exceedingly  high  temperature,  much  greater  pressure,  and 
therefore  much  greater  density,  can  be  attained  without  liquefac- 
tion or  solidification.  And  in  considering  the  effect  of  pressure 
on  the  materials  of  a  solid  globe,  we  must  not  fall  into  the  mistake 


294  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

of  supposing  that  the  strength  of  such  solid  materials  can  protect 
its  substance  from  compression  and  its  effects.  We  must  extend 
our  conceptions  beyond  what  is  familiar  to  us.  We  know  that 
any  ordinary  mass  of  some  strong,  heavy  solid — as  iron,  copper, 
or  gold — is  not  affected  by  its  own  weight  so  as  to  change  in  struc- 
ture to  an  appreciable  extent.  The  substance  of  a  mass  of  iron 
forty  or  fifty  feet  high  would  be  the  same  in  structure  at  the 
bottom  as  at  the  top  of  the  mass;  for  the  strength  of  the  metal 
would  resist  any  change  which  the  weight  of  the  mass  would 
(otherwise)  tend  to  produce.  But  if  there  were  a  cubical  moun- 
tain of  iron  twenty  miles  high,  the  lower  part  would  be  absolutely 
plastic  under  the  pressure  to  which  it  would  be  subjected.  It 
would  behave  in  all  respects  as  a  fluid,  inasmuch  that  if  (for  con- 
venience of  illustration)  we  suppose  it  enclosed  within  walls 
made  of  some  imaginary  (and  impossible)  substance  which  would 
yield  to  no  pressure,  then,  if  a  portion  of  the  wall  were  removed 
near  the  base  of  the  iron  mountain,  the  iron  would  flow  out  like 
water  from  a  hole  near  the  bottom  of  a  cask.  The  iron  would 
continue  to  run  out  in  this  way,  until  the  mass  was  reduced  sev- 
eral miles  in  height.  In  Jupiter's  case  a  mountain  of  iron  of 
much  less  height  would  be  similarly  plastic  in  its  lowest  parts, 
simply  because  of  the  much  greater  attractive  power  of  Jupiter's 
mass.  Thus  we  see  that  the  conception  of  a  hollow  interior,  or  of 
any  hollow  space  throughout  the  planet's  globe,  is  altogether  in- 
consistent with  what  is  known  of  the  constitution  of  even  the 
strongest  materials.  *  *  *  The  effect  of  pressure  in  rendering  iron 
and  other  metals  plastic  has  been  experimentally  determined. 
Cast  steel  has  been  made  to  flow  almost  like  water  under  pressure. 

You  may  perhaps  wonder  whether  Mr.  Proctor,  who 
penned  these  statements  a  half  century  ago,  may  not  have 
been  premature  in  the  making  of  them,  and  that  later  re- 
searches (during  the  greatest  investigating  age  of  all 
time)  may  have  contradicted  him.  No,  lie  was  not  mis- 
taken, nor  does  contemporary  science  throw  the  slight- 
est cloud  of  doubt  upon  either  the  facts  or  the  inferences 
as  he  gives  them.  Just  as  Jupiter  was  then  he  still  is, 
and  such  he  has  been,  according  to  present  scientific  opin- 
ion, for  as  long,  or  even  longer,  than  the  age  of  the  earth 
— say  a  thousand  million  of  years.  Why  is  he  still  so 
hot  after  a  million  times  as  long  as  (according  to  the 
orthodoxical  Newcomb),  had  he  been  an  "ordinary" 
body,  should  have  been  sufficient  to  cool  him  down  from  a 
solar  temperature  to  a  condition  such  as  the  moon  is  in 
to-day?  Jupiter  is  more  than  five  times  as  far  from  the 


GBAVISTATIC  HEAT  295 


sun  as  our  earth  is,  consequently  he  receives  only  1-27  as 
much  solar  heat,  area  for  area,  and  the  ether  that  sur- 
rounds him  is  colder  than  liquid  air.  Why,  I  insist  again, 
is  he  still  hot,  even  to  glowing?  Shall  we  follow  the  ex- 
ample of  the  Conservationists  and  lazily  sit  down  and 
wait  for  the  planet  to  cool,  or  shall  we  not  rather  seek 
explanation  for  the  phenomenon  in  routine  natural  pro- 
cesses? 

By  actual  experiment  physicists  have  demonstrated 
again  and  again  that  the  metal,  lead,  can  be  liquefied  in 
the  hydraulic  press.  They  interpret  this  phenomenon  in 
the  light  of  their  doctrine  of  conservation  as  signifying 
that  in  its  molten  state  the  metal  returns  just  as  many 
units  of  heat,  cmd  no  more,  as  the  mechanical  energy  de- 
voted to  its  compression.  In  their  haste  and  obsession 
it  seems  never  to  have  occurred  to  any  of  the  experi- 
menters to  watch  and  wait  to  see  whether  the  lead  will 
cool  off  or  not ;  they  are  content  to  accept  the  traditions 
of  their  profession  as  to  that.  As  in  the  case  of  the  vacu- 
um-tube experiment  they  prejudge  the  issue  and  refuse 
to  be  set  right. 

But  let  us  reason  the  thing  out  in  a  common-sense 
way.  Suppose  the  experiment  to  have  taken  place  up  to 
the  point  where  the  lead  is  liquefied,  in  the  cylinder,  and 
still  under  the  full  pressure  of  the  piston.  We  will  now 
assume,  to  begin  with,  the  possibility  that,  given  time,  the 
lead  will  cool  off  and  become  solid,  notwithstanding  the 
continuance  of  the  pressure.  At  this  latter  stage  imagine 
the  piston  to  be  undamped  completely  and  then  immedi- 
ately reclamped  with  precisely  the  same  effort  as  in  the 
first  instance,  what  effect  will  the  proceeding  have  on 
the  lead?  Will  the  latter  be  liquefied  afresh?  How  sot 
Surely  the  second  clamping,  by  merely  restoring  the 
former  conditions,  cannot  compress  the  ingot  to  less  com- 
pass than  before ;  and  without  accomplishing  this  much, 
according  to  general  acceptation,  the  lead  must  remain 
in  the  solid  state.  Alternatively,  suppose  the  metal  in 
this  case  should  nevertheless  become  liquefied;  then  in 
the  name  of  reason  why  did  it  not  stay  liquid  in  the  first 
place?  Again,  if  no  change  at  all  should  occur  and  the 


296  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

ingot  under  the  second  application  of  the  pressure  re- 
tained its  solidity  just  as  it  was  immediately  prior  to  the 
moment  of  unclamping,  then  all  the  energy  expended  in 
the  second  act,  though  by  premiss  precisely  the  same  as 
in  the  first,  would  be  utterly  lost,  not  being  compensated 
by  any  increase  of  temperature  whatsoever  in  the  lead. 
Shall  we  then  precipitately  conclude  that,  given  a  particu- 
lar mass  of  lead  that  has  once  before  been  liquefied  by  a 
certain  intensity  of  pressure,  it  can  never  again  be  lique- 
fied save  by  a  higher  pressure  than  other  lead  samples 
would  require;  resulting  at  the  end  of  a  series  of  such 
steps  in  a  specimen  of  the  metal  altogether  impervious 
to  compression!  Such  a  conclusion  cannot  be  true, 
surely,  for  it  would  be  tantamount  to  saying  that  gold  is 
not  always  gold,  lead  not  always  lead,  nor  iron  always 
iron. 

When  Proctor,  therefore,  speaks  of  a  cubical  iron 
mountain  being  able  to  liquefy  its  base,  and  when  the 
world  of  science  looks  approvingly  on  and  applauds  that 
statement  (which  it  does),  they  open  our  way  to  a  choice 
of  these  two  deductions;  (1)  that  it  is  the  common  trait 
of  all  cubical  iron  mountains  twenty  miles  high  to  liquefy 
their  bases,  or  (2)  that  some  do  but  others  do  not,  de- 
pending on  whether  they  have  ever  gone  through  the  per- 
formance before.  Of  these,  the  Conservationists  through- 
out their  ratiocinations  show  that  they  unqualifiedly 
adopt  the  second  as  a  kind  of  basic  principle,  and  accord- 
ingly they  are  looking  forward  to  the  day  when  all  of 
Jupiter's  mountains  of  iron,  and  of  lead,  and  of  other  ma- 
terials will  have  learned  not  to  liquefy  their  bases  and  to 
stay  chill  against  all  pressures. 

To  my  mind  the  thing  could  not  be  more  obvious  than 
it  is,  that  a  mountain  of  iron  which  by  its  pressure  once 
succeeds  in  liquefying  its  base  will  hold  that  base  in  a 
state  of  liquefaction  indefinitely.  When  lead  assumes 
the  fluid  form  in  the  hydraulic  press,  it  does  so  simply 
because  that  is  the  natural  condition  for  it  to  take  on 
when  under  that  amount  of  stress.  When  either  iron 
or  lead  is  in  the  fluid  state,  it  means  they  are  hot  because 
Nature  has  ordained  that  fluid  iron,  or  fluid  lead,  and  a 


GRAVISTATIC  HEAT  297 


high  temperature  shall  forever  go  hand  in  hand.  The 
bearing  of  heavy  loads  continuously  oppresses  matter  as 
it  oppresses  the  human  slave,  the  latter  experiencing  pain 
and  weariness,  the  former  evincing  its  discomfort  in 
"molecular  inflammation,"  as  it  were,  or  heat.  Jupiter, 
like  the  sun  and  stars,  is  hot  for  keeps. 

The  hypothesis  that  heat  is  an  entity  independent 
of  matter  will  not  bear  the  probe  of  truth.  If  this  were 
the  case,  the  application  of  high  compression  should  al- 
ways produce  warmth,  whereas  the  fact  is  it  sometimes 
produces  cold.  Indeed,  heat  itself  is  sometimes  utilized 
in  producing  cold — for  instance,  in  the  manufacture  of 
artificial  ice  and  in  liquefying  air.  I  allude  here,  how- 
ever, more  especially  to  the  peculiarity  of  water  in  being 
at  its  greatest  density,  not  at  its  freezing  point,  but  at 
about  two  degrees  above  it.  Experiment  shows  that  the 
compression  of  this  mineral  does  not  warm  it  at  all,  but 
actually  colds  it,  its  temperature  depending,  not  upon  the 
vigor  of  the  compressing  power,  but  upon  its  own  density 
while  under,  or  not  under,  compression.  Its  state  of 
highest  density  once  attained  and  established,  I  maintain, 
will  permanently  hold  the  water  at  a  fixed  low  tempera- 
ture, provided,  of  course,  that  of  the  surroundings  is  not 
greatly  altered  in  the  meanwhile.  In  other  words,  just 
as  lead  under  excessive  compressions  will  perpetually 
maintain  a  temperature  superior  to  that  of  the  surround- 
ing atmosphere,  so  will  water,  under  similar  compression, 
maintain  a  lower. 

Here  we  come  face  to  face  with  a  remarkable  pro- 
vision of  Nature  that  is  at  the  same  time  an  indubitable 
corroboration  of  this  reasoning.  We  have  already  called 
attention  to  the  phenomenon  that  the  earth's  tempera- 
ture increases  one  degree  Fahrenheit  for  about  every  60 
feet  of  depth.  At  this  rate  of  increase  the  temperature 
at  12.480  feet,  the  average  depth  of  the  ocean,  should  be 
no  less  than  212°.  In  direct  contrast  with  this,  deep 
ocean  soundings  all  over  the  world  have  shown  that  the 
bottom  waters  are  invariably  just  a  little  above  zero  (that 
is  to  say,  at  the  temperature  appropriate  to  water 's 
greatest  density).  On  the  one  hand,  then,  we  have  the 


298  FKOM  NEBULA  .TO  NEBULA 

earth-body  being  made  warm  by  compression,  threaten- 
ing the  destruction  of  our  planet  by  the  accumulation  of 
central  fires ;  and,  on  the  other,  an  automatic  cooling  de- 
vice for  conveying  this  surplus  warmth  up  through  the 
sea — in  its  passage  serving  its  own  good  purpose  in 
tempering  the  water  to  the  needs  of  the  living  creatures 
that  inhabit  it.  Indeed,  were  it  not  for  this  immense  ad- 
ditional source  of  heat  supplied  by  Mother  Earth  her- 
self, the  oceans  would  long  ago  have  f  rozn  to  a  great 
depth  (not  solid  to  the  bottom,  however,  for  the  reasons 
shown),  and  not  only  would  all  existing  life  never  have 
come  into  being,  but  it  is  more  than  doubtful  whether  any 
life  whatsoever  could  have  got  a  start. 

From  time  to  time  the  suggestion  is  revived  to  sink  a 
well  two  or  three  miles  deep  for  the  purpose  of  tapping 
the  earth's  store  of  internal  heat;  but  nothing  has  come 
of  it  as  yet,  so  far  as  I  am  aware.  That  such  a  project, 
if  carried  out  in  earnest,  would  bring  with  it  many  sur- 
prises, perhaps  not  all  of  an  agreeable  character,  is 
scarcely  to  be  doubted.  However,  there  is  an  alternative 
method  which  to  my  mind  is  much  more  feasible.  This 
is  to  construct  presses  of  suitable  materials  capable  of 
bringing  to  bear  the  highest  possible  leverage  on,  say,  a 
body  of  lead  or  iron,  imbedded  in  which  should  be  a  coil 
of  pipe  made  of  some  stout,  refractory  material,  through 
which  water  might  be  kept  circulating.  Under  these  con- 
ditions the  pressure-liquefied  metal  would  continuously 
preserve  a  high  temperature  and  steam  would  be  gen- 
erated without  interruption,  according  with  the  capacity 
of  the  machine.  Just  how  much  pressure  would  be  re- 
quired in  a  given  case  can  be  estimated  in  this  way: 

The  pressure  of  the  atmosphere  at  sea-level  will  sup- 
port a  column  of  water  34  feet  high,  and  this  pressure  is 
equivalent  to  15  pounds  to  the  square  inch.  If  now  we 
assume,  what  is  approximately  true,  that  the  material  of 
the  earth's  crust  is  three  times  as  heavy  as  water,  and 
that  the  temperature  of  the  crust  increases  at  the  rate  of 
one  degree  in  every  68  feet  (2  x  34)  we  find  that  to  raise  a 
given  substance  one  degree  we  must  apply  a  pressure  of 


GRAVISTATIC  HEAT  299 


six  atmospheres;  and  so  on  for  any  number  of  degrees 
desired. 

With  this  wonderful  and  inexhaustible  source  of  en- 
ergy at  command  mankind  can  reckon  calmly  on  the  fu- 
ture, and  view  with  equanimity  the  hitherto  terrifying 
prospect  that  our  present  visible  supplies  of  unmined 
coal  will  become  exhausted  within  the  next  two  centuries. 
By  pressure  coolness,  too,  can  be  produced,  though  not  to 
corresponding  extremes,  by  merely  allowing  water  to 
cool  to  its  lowest  point  of  density  and,  while  in  that  state, 
stoutly  confining  it  against  future  expansion.In  this  con- 
nection, permit  another  quotation  from  Professor 
Stewart  (Conservation  of  Energy,  pp.  118,  119) : 

It  may  be  shown  that  if  the  proposition  (of  conservation)  be 
true,  under  certain  test  conditions  we  ought  to  obtain  certain  re- 
sults— for  instance,  if  we  increase  the  pressure,  we  ought  to 
lower  the  freezing  point  of  water.  Well,  we  make  the  experiment 
and  find  that,  in  point  of  fact,  the  freezing  point  of  water  is  low- 
ered by  increasing  the  pressure,  and  we  have  thus  derived  an 
argument  in  favor  of  the  conservation  of  energy. 

Or  again,  if  the  laws  of  energy  are  true,  it  may  be  shown 
that  whenever  a  substance  contracts  when  heated,  it  will  become 
colder  instead  of  hotter  by  compression.  Now,  we  know  that 
ice-cold  water  or  water  just  a  little  above  its  freezing  point,  con- 
tracts instead  of  expanding  up  to  4°  C ;  and  Sir  William  Thomp- 
son has  found  by  experiment  that  water  at  this  temperature  is 
cooled  instead  of  heated  by  sudden  compression. 

Let  us  scan  the  claim  Mr.  Stewart  makes  that  this 
instance  he  speaks  of  is  a  "  proof  of  conservation. "  In 
the  first  place,  it  will  not  be  denied  by  any  Conservation- 
ist that  the  work  done  in  turning  the  compression  screw 
is  equatable  in  terms  of  units  of  thermal  energy.  Sup- 
pose, now,  that  a  flame  were  applied  to  the  container  un- 
til the  water  was  restored  to  the  temperature  it  had  prior 
to  compression,  and  the  clamp  then  released.  What  now 
would  be  the  state  of  our  dynamics  account  in  profit  and 
loss  in  terms  of  units  of  energy?  On  the  side  of  profits 
there  would  be  positively  nothing,  while  the  losses  would 
be  treble,  and  include  the  mechanical  energy  of  clamping, 
of  unclamping,  and  the  heat  of  the  flame — yet  the  status 
at  the  end  would  be  precisely  what  it  was  at  the  outset ! 


300  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

How  much  more  reasonable  to  say  that  when  under  heavy 
compression  water  is  naturally  cold,  and  as  naturally  re- 
mains so  while  the  load  stays  on. 

The  theory  that  energy  is  something  apart  from 
matter  and  that  heat  is  energy,  whereas  its  absence  is  a 
negation,  does  not  bear  out  in  practice.  If  you  will  take 
two  exactly  similar  metallic  vessels,  fill  both  of  them  with 
water  and  tightly  seal  them  and  then  place  one  of  them 
over  a  hot  flame  and  the  other  out  in  the  bitter  cold,  you 
will  learn  that  both  alike  will  rend  themselves.  One  will 
burst  by  gaseous  expansion  due  to  heat,  the  other  by  the 
swelling  of  the  water  into  solid  ice;  in  the  former  case 
you  must  wait  until  the  heat  accumulates,  in  the  latter, 
until  the  last  vestige  of  it  has  departed!  The  result  in 
both  cases  is  the  same.  Why  then  do  they  call  heat  en- 
ergy, but  coldness  not?  Again,  to  produce  a  quart  of 
liquid  air  requires  the  waste  of  a  great  deal  of  heat,  but 
the  former,  by  virtue  of  its  frigidity,  will  accomplish 
wonders  that  heat  could  never  begin  to  do,  or  undo.  The 
Conservationists  will  tell  you  that  the  work  done  by  the 
liquid  air  is  in  fact  a  compensation  for  the  thermal  en- 
ergy expended  in  its  liquefication,  but  what  about  the 
work  of  condensation  on  the  sun  performed  by  the  cold 
of  space?  Is  the  inexhaustible  cold  of  space,  also,  a 
"  product  of  thermal  expenditure  ? "  You  see  that  by 
every  avenue  of  reasoning  we  pursue,  the  truth  shines 
forth  that  energy  is  not  an  entity  of  itself,  but  a  gesture 
of  matter,  and  for  that  reason  repeatable  indefinitely. 

The  conductivity  of  earthy  matters  is  notoriously 
poor,  that  of  marble,  for  example,  being  only  about  1-100 
that  of  silver,  and  brick-earth  only  about  1-200  of  the 
same.  The  thickness  of  a  few  inches  of  clay  in  the  walls 
of  a  crucible  will  protect  the  workmen  from  a  fire  within 
it  of  two  thousand  degrees,  and  more.  Now,,  the  temper- 
ature of  the  earth's  crust  varies  at  the  snail's  pace  of 
only  one  degree  for  60  feet  of  earthy  matter.  Which,  I 
pray,  is  the  more  reasonable  inference :  that  the  central 
heat  is  oozing  out  at  this  amazingly  odd  rate,  or  that  the 
temperature  gradient  is  due  to  the  fact  of  gravistatic 
heat  being  generated  in  situ?  Anent  this  subject,  let  me 


GRAVISTATIC  HEAT  301 


quote  the  testimony  of  Alfred  Eussell  Wallace  (Is  Mars 
Habitable,  p.  40) : 

In  order  that  the  problem  may  be  understood  and  its  im- 
portance appreciated,  it  is  necessary  to  explain  the  now  generally 
accepted  principles  as  to  the  causes  which  determine  the  tempera- 
tures on  our  earth,  and,  presumably,  on  all  other  planets  whose 
conditions  are  not  wholly  unlike  ours.  The  fact  of  the  internal 
heat  of  the  earth  which  becomes  very  perceptible  even  at  the 
moderate  depths  reached  in  mines  and  deep  borings,  and  in  the 
deepest  mines  becomes  a  positive  inconvenience,  leads  many 
people  to  suppose  that  the  surface-temperatures  of  the  earth  are 
partly  due  to  this  cause.  But  it  is  now  generally  admitted  that 
this  is  not  the  case,  the  reason  being  that  all  rocks  and  soils,  in 
their  natural  compacted  state,  are  exceedingly  bad  conductors  of 
heat. 

A  striking  illustration  of  this  is  the  fact,  that  a  stream  of 
lava  often  continues  to  be  red-hot  at  a  few  feet  depth  for  years 
after  the  surface  is  consolidated,  and  is  hardly  any  warmer  than 
that  of  the  surrounding  land.  A  stilll  more  remarkable  case  is 
that  of  a  glacier  on  the  south-east  side  of  the  highest  cone  of 
Etna  underneath  a  lava  stream  with  an  intervening  bed  of  vol- 
canic sand  only  ten  feet  thick  This  was  visited  by  Sir  Charles 
Lyell  in  1828,  and  a  second  time  thirty  years  later,  when  he  made 
a  very  careful  examination  of  the  strata,  and  was  quite  satisfied 
that  the  sand  and  the  lava  stream  together  had  actually  preserved 
this  mass  of  ice,  which  neither  the  heat  of  the  lava  above  it  at 
its  first  outflow,  nor  the  continued  heat  rising  from  the  great 
volcano  below  it,  had  been  able  to  melt  or  perceptibly  to  diminish 
in  thirty  years.  Another  fact  that  points  in  the  same  direction  is 
the  existence  over  the  whole  floor  of  the  deepest  oceans  of  ice- 
cold  water,  which,  originating  in  the  polar  seas,  owing  to  its 
greater  density  sinks  and  creeps  slowly  along  the  ocean  bottom 
to  the  depths  of  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific,  and  is  not  perceptibly 
warmed  by  the  internal  heat  of  the  earth. 

In  boring  tunnels  through  the  Alps  several  independ- 
ent preliminary  surveys  are  made  with  infinite  care,  so 
that  the  work  may  be  prosecuted  from  both  ends  at  once 
with  the  certainty  of  accurately  meeting  in  the  middle. 
What  would  the  chances  be  of  meeting  thus  fortuitously? 
Now,  we  have  just  such  a  parallel  instance  in  the  case  of 
the  earth's  heat,  for,  just  about  five  feet  under  the  sur- 
face the  temperature  is  uniform  the  year  round  and 
exactly  the  mean  of  that  of  the  atmosphere  above.  How 
comes  it  that  scientists  have  never  thought  worth  while 


302  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

to  comment  on  this  amazing  coincidence, — that  the  heat 
alleged  by  them  to  have  been  implanted  in  the  earth  tens 
of  millions  of  years  ago,  and  ever  since  engaged  in  escap- 
ing, should,  just  in  our  day  and  hour,  happen  so  precisely 
to  match  the  mean  surface  temperature,  which  owes  it- 
self to  a  totally  independent  cause !  What  was  the  tem- 
perature a  hundred  feet  below  the  surface  a  hundred,  a 
thousand,  a  million  years  ago  ?  and,  since  theoretically  so 
much  hotter  than  now,  what  should  have  been  the  effect 
upon  animal  and  plant  life  f 

If  current  theory  were  really  correct,  our  planet 
would  be  a  very  unsafe  one  to  dwell  upon,  for  a  central 
heat  of  300.000°  (as  indicated  by  the  temperature  gradi- 
ent) would  speedily  disrupt  it,  or,  rather,  there  should 
now  be  no  earth.  According  to  my  theory,  the  rate  of 
such  increase,  being  dependent  on  the  strength  of  gravity, 
must  diminish  the  farther  down  we  get,  so  that  the  maxi- 
mum calculated  temperature  would  not  be  more  than  half 
the  amount  stated.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  far  below 
this  figure,  because  of  the  extensive  internal  water-cir- 
culation that  doubtless  exists. 

Were  the  planet  ever  to  increase  to  a  great  size,  like 
that  of  Jupiter,  for  instance,  the  intense  heat  generated 
would  quickly  dissipate  the  present  oceans,  and  in  time 
cause  the  earth  to  acquire  the  same  general  characteris- 
tics as  that  giant  orb. 

We  thus  see  that  the  earth 's  economy  provides  what 
it  demands,  a  running  supply  of  heat,  and  a  uniform  one. 
The  extreme  secular  variation  implied  by  the  kinetic 
theory,  as  currently  understood,  or  by  the  radium  theory, 
would  have  proved  just  as  inevitably  fatal  to  earth-life 
as  a  secular  variation  in  the  sun's  temperature.  Nature 
does  not  dole  out  treasured  heat,  but  evolves  it  as  she 
goes  along,  and  with  the  same  lavishness  she  displays  in 
all  else. 

In  this  process  of  gravistatic-heat  production  we 
have  the  clue  to  why  the  universe  did  not  long  ago  perish 
by  agglomeration  into  a  single  mass,  and  why  it  never 
can  do  so.  Without  some  adequate  dispersive  force,  con- 


GRAVISTATIC  HEAT  303 


slant  mutual  attraction  must  prevail  in  the  long  run  and 
in  the  end  bring  about  a  crash  that  should  leave  nothing 
but  a  stupendous  clinker  to  mark  the  tomb  of  Nature. 

It  is  inferrable  that  all  matter  has  run  the  celestial 
cycle  many  times,  so  that  the  chances  are  a  myriad  to 
one  that  a  given  planet  has  not  grown  by  simple  accumu- 
lations of  primordial  dust,  but  owes  its  nucleus  to  a  frag- 
ment from  its  own  sun  or  a  neighboring  star.  Or,  rather, 
to  fragments,  for  the  stars  are  unquestionably  plastic, 
so  that  the  future  planet  gains  separate  existence  in  the 
form  of  a  jet  of  coarse  spray  divided  into  many  globules, 
which  separately  congeal  and  afterward  cling  together 
as  a  unit  when  their  mutual  attraction  triumphs  over  the 
unequal  dispersive  effect  of  the  explosion  that  begat 
them.  That  all  planets  are  spherical,  follows  from  the 
law  of  gravitation,  provided  their  parts  are  sufficiently 
small  or  mobile.  Were  the  fragment  but  an  irregular 
and  very  rigid  block  its  future  shape  would  depend  upon 
its  size  alone ;  one  very  large  would  melt  with  the  fervor 
of  its  self-generated  heat,  whereas  a  small  one,  such  as 
an  asteroid  or  a  meteor,  might  be  and  stay  any  odd  shape. 

LIFE  IN  THE  UNIVERSE 

One  of  the  labors  of  the  chemist  is  to  synthesize  com- 
pounds for  various  uses  in  the  arts,  and  in  the  pursuit 
of  this  object  he  is  often  obliged  to  try  hundreds,  perhaps 
thousands,  of  combinations  and  permutations  before  he 
attains  the  particular  end  he  desires;  if  he  attains  it  at 
all.  Thus  far,  science  has  never  succeeded  in  experi- 
mentally synthesizing  protoplasm,  the  basis  of  life,  or, 
at  least,  protoplasm  that  actually  lived.  Speculating 
with  regard  to  gravitation,  we  may  well  ask  whether  that 
power  which,  as  we  have  seen,  inspires  all  the  activities 
of  the  universe,  may  not,  directly  or  indirectly,  be  the 
secret  of  life — -whether,  so  to  speak,  life  may  not  be  a  sort 
of  idealizied  form  of  it,  the  " will-to-live"  of  Schopen- 
hauer. In  the  sun,  in  every  star,  in  every  planet,  indeed, 
we  see  the  crucibles  in  which  Nature  tries  out  her  materi- 
als, combining,  dissociating,  and  recombining  them,  again 


304  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

and  again,  endlessly,  to  work  out  her  evolutionary  pur- 
poses. When,  finally,  the  star  explodes,  its  scattered 
parts,  though  in  the  main  alike,  nevertheless  carry 
severally  something  unique  in  their  chemical  make-up 
that  has  its  peculiar  cosmic  value.  Is  it,  then,  unreason- 
able to  conceive  that  some  one,  or  many,  of  these  may 
fortuitously  contain  in  generous  measure  all  the  ingredi- 
ents of  this  mysterious  protoplasm,  and,  becoming  buried 
in  the  planet  far  enough  from  the  surface  to  enjoy  just 
the  right  degree  and  uniformity  of  gravistatic  tempera- 
ture requisite  for  prolonged  incubation,  in  the  end  germi- 
nate life  ? 

The  size  of  a  planet  determines  its  character  abso- 
lutely. If  over-large  it  generates  too  much  gravistatic 
heat  to  make  life  possible  on  its  surface ;  if  too  small,  it 
does  not  generate  enough  to  keep  its  oceans  from  freez- 
ing, and  life  is  again  rendered  impossible.  Since  how- 
ever, it  is  the  nature  of  planets  to  grow,  such  as  are  too 
small,  like  Mars  and  the  moon,  may  hope  one  day  to  emu- 
late the  earth  in  fecundity,  but  the  major  planets  are 
doomed  to  perpetual  barrenness,  although  they  may  once 
have  been  vivif erous. 

A  close  analysis  of  these  and  many  other  facts,  such, 
for  example,  as  the  inclination  of  the  earth 's  axis,  the 
small  eccentricity  of  its  orbit,  the  nice  adjustment  of  its 
size  "gravistatically"  to  the  work  required  of  it,  its 
favorable  distance  from  the  sun,  the  possible  fortuity  in- 
volved in  the  origination  of  life,  etc.,  make  it  seem  not 
entirely  impossible  that  terrestrial  man  is  the  only 
creature  in  the  universe  capable  of  comprehending  and 
appreciating  its  stupendous  beauty  and  scope.  The 
thought  has  its  terrors  as  well  as  its  inspiration. 

The  evolutionist,  the  physicist,  the  geologist,  the 
biologist,  may  all  find  in  gravistatic  heat  the  explanation 
of  many  of  their  enigmas;  such,  for  example,  as  the  as- 
similation by  Nature  of  her  heterogeneous  substances  in- 
to combinations  beneficial  to  plant  and  animal  life ;  or  the 
distillation  of  mineral  gases,  oils,  and  the  like ;  or  the  in- 
ternal structure  of  the  earth;  or  the  explanation  of 
marine  life,  and  so  on. 


GRAVISTATIC  HEAT  305 


Having  passed  the  habitable  stage,  nothing  lies  in 
store  for  a  planet  but  to  grow  up  into  a  sun  or  a  star, 
with  a  retinue  of  planets  to  circle  around  him.  Even- 
tually his  Gargantuan  appetite  for  devouring  lesser  sur- 
rounding bodies  will  create  of  him  a  vortex  menacing  to 
the  integrity  of  the  universe,  and  Nature  in  very  self- 
defense  will  have  to  decree  his  extinction.  One  day 
comes  the  crisis.  In  an  instant  his  huge  bulk  bursts 
asunder  and  is  scattered  broadcast,  with  the  speed  of 
light,  into  surrounding  space.  Some  fragments  enter 
other  systems  carrying  with  them  more  or  less  gravita- 
tional disturbances;  but  most  of  his  substance  remains 
within  his  whilom  domain  in  the  form  of  a  nondescript 
nebulous  cloud  enveloping  a  hailstorm  of  meteors  and 
larger  fragments  that  instantly  begin  the  process  of 
equilibristic  readjustment  to  the  altered  conditions;  a 
process  requiring  a  year  of  ages,  and  ending  at  last  in  a 
new  system  of  worlds. 

Here  among  the  stars,  then,  do  we  find  Nature  acting 
consistently  with  her  established  order  on  earth;  build- 
ing only  to  tear  down,  bearing  children  that  they  may 
die,  creating,  so  there  may  not  be  wanting  something  to 
decay.  Or  shall  we  not  rather  reverse  the  philosophical 
order  and  say,  that  she  destroys  only  that  she  may  im- 
prove, that  she  sacrifices  the  individual,  not  wantonly, 
but  for  the  sake  of  the  well-being,  salvation,  and  evolu- 
tional development  of  the  universal  Whole? 

This  destruction  of  stars  is  as  sure  as  fate,  and 
seemingly  as  fortuitous  as  is  physical  death  among  man- 
kind. What  star  shall  be  the  next  to  explode  is  a  matter 
of  inscrutable  chance,  and  for  this  reason  the  stellar  map 
is  so  wanting  in  symmetry.  But  symmetry  never  has 
been,  nor  ever  will  be,  either  a  guaranty  of  permanence 
nor  a  consummation  devoutly  to  be  wished.  That  vari- 
ety is  the  spice  of  life  is  a  truth  recognized  by  Nature 
long  before  she  ever  thought  to  create  man.  Euling 
though  she  does  by  the  most  inexorable  of  laws,  she  yet 
manages  to  evolve  infinite  diversity,  so  that  no  two  ob- 
jects are  ever  precisely  alike.  Planetary  systems, 
planets,  men,  flowers,  snowflakes,  though  faithful  types 


306 FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBXILA        

in  all  things  of  their  respective  classes,  yet  possess  in- 
dividual traits  distinguishing  them  from  all  others  of 
their  kind. 


XII 


THE  PLANETS  MAES  AND  VENUS 

NEXT  to  the  earth  itself, Mars  is  by  far  the  most  in- 
teresting of  the  primary  planets,  notwithstanding 
that  it  is  the  second  smallest.  The  reason  for  this 
lies  partly  in  the  fact  that  on  account  of  its  nearness  and 
its  favorable  location  for  observation  we  can  obtain  a 
closer  and  better  view  of  its  surface  than  we  can  of  any 
other  planet,  but  mainly  in  the  mystery  of  its  so-called 
" canals"  and  the  question  as  to  whether  it  is  inhabited 
by  an  intelligent  race  of  beings.  When  very  closest  to  us, 
Mars  is  still  over  35,000,000  miles  distant,  and  this  dis- 
tance varies  all  the  way  up  to  250,000,000  miles,  depend- 
ing on  whether  the  planet  is  on  the  same  side  of  the  sun  as 
the  earth  or  not.  Inasmuch  as  the  diameter  of  the  planet 
is  only  about  half  (4,200  miles)  that  of  our  earth,  simple 
computation  will  show  that,  when  very  nearest,  it  sub- 
tends the  same  visual  angle  as  a  25-cent  piece  does  at  a 
distance  of  700  feet !  It  should  therefore  not  surprise  the 
reader  to  learn  that  there  has  been  a  great  deal  of  con- 
troversy between  first-class  observers,  armed  with  the 
best  of  instruments,  as  to  whether  the  "  canals "  exist  at 
all,  not  to  mention  the  even  more  indistinct  details  which 
Lowell  and  others  claim  to  have  detected. 

The  first  astronomer  to  call  attention  to  these  lines 
on  the  Martian  map  was  the  Italian,  Giovanni  Virginio 
Schiaparelli  (1835-1910),  in  1877,  who  called  them  canali, 
which,  it  is  said,  does  not  precisely  correspond  in  mean- 
ing with  the  English  word  "  canals "  as  subsequently 


308  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

employed  to  designate  the  same  marks.  With  the  closer 
study  of  these  mysterious  lines  as  his  main  object,  Doc- 
tor Percival  Lowell  (1855-1916)  established,  in  1894,  an 
observatory  of  his  own  at  Flagstaff,  Arizona,  and  a  year 
later  propounded  his  now  celebrated  hypothesis  that  the 
canals  are  the  handiwork  of  a  race  of  intelligent  beings 
who  still  inhabit  the  planet  and  continue  utilizing  the 
canals  for  the  purpose  for  which  they  were  laid,  to  wit, 
irrigation. 

The  fact  that  Mars  is  half  again  as  far  from  the  sun 
as  we  are,  diminishes,  of  course,  the  amount  of  light  and 
heat  it  receives.  This  quantity,  varying  inversely  with 
the  square  of  its  distance,  amounts  to  less  than  four- 
ninths  that  which  the  earth  enjoys,  area  for  area.  Need- 
less to  say,  the  effects  of  this  deprivation  of  the  chief 
requisites  for  the  preservation  of  life,  assuming  its 
existence,  must  be  very  serious  indeed,  and  they  consti- 
tute one  of  the  chief  difficulties  to  be  overcome  by  the 
advocates  of  the  Lowellian  contention.  The  surface 
gravity  of  the  planet,  whose  mass  is  but  1-9  of  our  earth, 
is  reckoned  to  be  38  per  cent  as  great,  so  that  a  rock  which 
on  our  planet  would  weigh  a  hundred  pounds  would  scale 
but  38  pounds  there. 

According  to  Doctor  William  H.  Pickering,  who,  now 
that  Lowell  has  passed  beyond,  is  probably  esteemed  the 
chief  authority  on  Mars  in  this  country,  as  he  has  long 
been  on  the  moon,  in  his  article  in  the  Americana  on  the 
planet  describes  the  canals  and  other  surface  features  in 
these  words :  '  '  They  consist  of  narrow  dark  lines,  gen- 
erally straight,  forming  a  network  over  the  whole  sur- 
face of  the  planet.  At  their  junctions  we  often  find  small 
black  dots,  known  as  lakes  or  oases.  Large  areas  of  the 
planet,  called  seas,  are  of  a  dark  gray  color,  but  most  of 
the  surface  is  yellow,  or,  if  observed  by  daylight,  orange. 
The  cause  of  all  the  dark  regions  is  probably  vegetation, 
with  the  exception  of  the  two  very  black  lines  which  are 
seen  to  surround  the  snow  caps  when  they  are  melting. 
These  two  lines  are  temporary  in  their  nature,  and  form 
the  only  true  oceans  of  the  planet.  Occasionally  they 
attain  a  breadth  in  some  places  of  300  or  400  miles,  and 


MARS  AND  VENUS  309 


are  then  found  to  be  of  a  dark  blue  color.  The  polari- 
scope  shows  that,  unlike  the  rest  of  Mars,  their  surfaces 
are  shiny.  The  yellow  regions  are  thought  to  be  deserts. 
They  cover  more  than  half  the  entire  surface.  Very 
marked  changes  sometimes  appear  in  the  finer  details 
when  the  snow  is  melting  most  rapidly.  At  the  approach 
of  the  Martian  autumn  those  parts  of  the  dark  areas  that 
are  near  the  poles  are  seen  to  fade  out  and  turn  yellow 
so  as  to  be  indistinguishable  from  the  soil  of  the  planet. 

LOWELL'S  THEORY  OF  AN  INHABITED  MARS 

Doctor  Lowell  had  long  been  a  close  student  of  Mars 
and  a  prolific  writer  on  this  his  favorite  theme,  when,  in 
1909,  he  published  his  Mars  as  the  Abode  of  Life,  in  which 
he  summarized  the  whole  subject.  As  basic  facts,  be- 
sides those  enumerated  above,  for  his  theory,  he  cites 
the  following  (I  quote  his  exact  words  only  in  part) : 

1.  "The  northern  snow-cap  diminishes  from  78°  to 
6°,  the  southern  dwindles  from  96°  to  nothing. 

2.  "Mars'    surface    is    singularly    devoid    of    ir- 
regularities.    The  more  minutely  it  is  viewed  the  more 
its  levelness  grows  apparent.     Calculation  shows  that 
heights  even  of  very  moderate  elevation  should  be  visible 
if  such  existed  and  none  show. 

3.  "Excluding  the  polar  caps,  the  surface  consists 
of  large  robin  's-egg-blue  patches  indiscriminately  placed 
upon  a  general  background  of  rose  ochre,  the  relative 
areas  being  %ths  to  %ths.     The  tints  frequently  vary  in 
shade  and  grade  off  insensibly  into  each  other,  thus  mak- 
ing regions  of  intermediate  color  but  the  precise  borders 
of  which  are  not  decipherable  by  the  eye".    The  ochre 
regions  he  construes  to  be  deserts  of  sand  and  rock  in- 
trinsically of  that  color.    "White  dots  too  are  scattered 
over  the  disk,  dazzling  diamond  points  that  deck  the 
planet's  features  to  a  richness  beyond  the  power  of  pen- 
cil to  portray,  so  minute  are  they  that  good  seeing  is  nec- 
essary to  disclose  them". 


310  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

4.  The  fact  that  the  canals  appear  on  the  dark  blue 
regions  as  well  as  on  the  ochre  leads  him  to  assume  that 
both  are  land ;  the  former,  in  his  opinion,  being  probably 
the  basins  of  evaporated  oceans  and  now  covered  with 
vegetation. 

5.  The  canals  follow  the  arcs  of  the  planet's  great 
circles,  so  that  we  who  look  centrally  down  upon  them  see 
apparently   straight   lines.     This    studious    regard   for 
choosing  the  shortest  distance,  he  opines,  implies  not  only 
provident  economy  in  design,  but  also  a  very  high  degree 
of  technical  knowledge  and  skill.    Necessarily,  there  are 
many  points  of  intersection,  and,  strange  to  say,  at  the 
majority  of  these  there  are  circular  dots  about  75  miles 
in  diameter,  which  in  color  correspond  with  the  canals. 
These  Mr.  Lowell  conceives  to  be  oases,  Martian  cities,  as 
it  were,  environed  by  irrigated  farms.    Not  this  alone, 
these  canals  connect  with  certain  caret-shaped  spots  that 
appear  to  be  the  "salient  points"   of  the  blue-green 
patches ;  and  from  certain  of  the  oases  canals  branch  out 
numerously,  always  in  straight  lines,  to   other  oases, 
forming  a  sort  of  open  network.     They  always  lead  to 
definite  destinations,  never  stop  short  as  rivers  might  do, 
and,   again  unlike   rivers,  they  preserve   a   surprising 
uniformity  of  line  throughout. 

6.  In  the  first  days  of  summer  of  each  hemisphere 
these  canals,  he  states,  begin  to  grow  in  distinctness, 
starting  at  the  polar  cap  soon  after  it  commences  to  thaw 
and  thence  gradually  continuing  down  to  the  equator. 
At  such  times,  too,  certain  of  the  canals  have  a  trick  of 
pairing  or  doubling,  technically  known  as  "gemination". 

7.  The  aggregate  length  of  the  canals  is  enormous, 
probably  as  much  as  40,000  miles,  or  three  times  the  cir- 
cumference of  the  Martian  globe.    Five  hundred  and 
twenty-two  of  them  have  been  mapped,  the  shortest  being 
not  less  than  250  miles  in  length  and  the  longest,  the 
Eumenides-Orcus,  stretching  the  enormous  distance  of 
3450  miles.    At  least  a  dozen  extend  to  points  far  withih 
the  polar  circles,  and  would  no  doubt  be  found  to  reach 
even  to  the  pole  itself,  were  their  ends  not  obscured  by 


MARS  AND  VENUS  311 


the  sharp  retreating  figure  of  the  globe  in  that  high 
latitude. 

After  thus  carefully  setting  out  his  facts,  Mr.  Lowell 
proceeds  to  his  theorizing  somewhat  as  follows : 

1.  According  to  the  molecular  theory  and  the  math- 
ematical analysis  by  Clerk  Maxwell,  the  molecules  of 
hydrogen  possess  velocities  of  about  seven  miles  a  second, 
which  is  slightly  higher  than  the  critical,  or  parabolic, 
velocity  at  the  earth's  surface,  and  very  much  higher 
than  this  same  velocity  at  the  surface  of  Mars.    Now, 
Doctor  Johnstone  Stoney  has  suggested  that  a  logical 
consequence  of  this  molecular  pecularity  should  be  that 
small  bodies  like  the  moon  would,  because  of  their  feeble- 
ness of  attraction,  gradually  lose  these  swifter-moving 
molecules  and,  in  the  course  of  years  or  centuries,  become 
denuded,  not  only  of  a  large  part  of  their  original  atmos- 
phere, but  more  particularly  of  their  original  supplies  of 
water,  of  which  mineral  hydrogen  is  an  indispensable 
constitutent.    As  scientists  in  general  concede  this  de- 
duction of  Doctor  Stoney,  and  as  the  dead  moon  is  uni- 
versally believed  by  them  to  be  devoid  of  both  air  and 
water,   or  practically  so,  the  inference  is  that  Mars, 
though  more  slowly,  is  following  the  moon's  example  and 
gradually  deteriorating  into  a  desert  planet  at  the  end 
of  a  protracted  period  of  exalted  biological  development. 
Mars,  then,  Mr.  Lowell  concludes,  is  an  arid  planet,  and 
to  its  inhabitants,  if  any,  water  must  be  at  a  very  high 
premium. 

2.  Water    is    essential    to    life.     There    being   no 
oceans,  the  streams  too  must  be  dried  up.    The  alter- 
native is  presented  of  death  from  thirst,  or  of  recourse 
to  the  only  fresh  water  supply  remaining,  to  wit,  the 
polar  snows. 

3.  Naturally  this  necessity  prompted  to  the  Mar- 
tians the  canal  idea.     Of  course  the  system  now  in  evi- 
dence was  not  constructed  in  a  day;  it  was  the  result, 
rather,  of  slow  growth,  developing  painfully  in  inverse 
ratio  to  the  failing  sources  of  supply. 


312  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

4.  The  undertaking,  he  opines,  was  far  less  formi- 
dable than  a  similar  one  would  be  here.    First  of  all,  the 
flatness  of  the  surface  would  obviate  much  grading  and 
leveling.     Then,  again,  on  account  of  the  lesser  surface 
gravity,  the  efficiency  of  the  machinery  would  be  perhaps 
quadrupled.    If  to  these  positive  advantages  be  added 
the   suppositions  that  the  Martians  are  gigantic,  and 
further  advanced  in  the  mechanical  arts  than  ourselves, 
the  objection  on  the  score  of  mere  physical  difficulty  is 
largely  reduced. 

5.  The  surface  being  flat,  every  point  within  as  well 
as  beyond  the  polar  circles  would  be  in  stable  equilibrium. 
This  means  that  the  water  would  not  descend  through 
the  canals  at  any  useful  speed  without  artificial  propul- 
sion.    Observation  proves  to  him  that  the  canals  show 
activity  of  a  certain  kind  immediately  following  the  in- 
cipient thawing  of  the  snow-cap,  and  that  this  active 
movement  travels  equatorward  at  the  rate  of  51  miles  a 
day  for  a  distance  of  3300  miles.    As  to  the  nature  of 
this  change  we  can  judge  only  from  appearance,  which 
consists  in  a  gradual  darkening  and  broadening  of  the 
canal  lines,  and  this  is  construed  by  him  to  be  due  to 
stimulated  vegetation  along  their  borders. 

6.  The  ancient ' '  sea  bottoms ' ',  he  infers  from  their 
color,  are  regions  of  vegetation.    Yet  they  too  exhibit 
"  canals ",  not  only  entering  from  the  nearest  pole  of 
supply,  but  rising  again  into  the  arid  regions  nearer  the 
equator.     This  feat  of  canalizing  the  basin  of  an  ocean 
and  thence  raising  the  water  to  the  farther  shore  Mr. 
Lowell  cites  as  a  striking  evidence  of  Martian  engineer- 
ing prowess. 

7.  The  distance  of  Mars  from  the  sun,  its  source  of 
heat,  is  not  so  great  as  absolutely  to  preclude  the  exis- 
tence of  animal  life.     Mars'  summer  is  much  longer  than 
ours,  and  planetary  life  is  determined  rather  by  the  mild- 
ness of  summer  than  by  the  asperity  of  winter.     Mars' 
mean  temperature  he  estimates  at  about  48°  F. 

8.  Unlike  the  snow  caps  of  our  Arctic  and  Antarctic 


MARS  AND  VENUS  313 


regions,  those  of  Mars  are  not  permanent,  but  disappear 
all  but  totally  every  recurring  summer  season,  and  are 
redeposited  during  the  succeeding  winter  with  the  same 
unfailing  regularity.  Reminding  us  of  the  fact  that  the 
solar  warmth  is  only  4-9  as  great  as  here,  Doctor  Lowell 
argues  from  these  two  premises  combined  that  the  polar 
snow  deposits  must  be  very  scant  indeed  to  be  so  easily 
and  quickly  dispersed. 

9.  Philosophically  speaking,  the  evolution  of  life 
from  matter  is  the  order  of  Nature.  Mars,  whether  or 
not  older  than  our  planet,  presumably  cooled  earlier,  both 
because  smaller  in  size  and  more  remote  from  the  sun. 
Hence  it  has  already  run  the  gamut  of  evolution,  and, 
by  the  principle  of  survival  of  the  fittest,  the  present 
Martians  must  be  the  highest  products  of  their  race. 
Historically,  they  have  witnessed  the  birth  of  a  world 
and  seen  it  pass  through  its  seven  ages  into  that  of  the 
sere  and  yellow  leaf.  Even  the  seas  have  dried  up,  part- 
ly by  absorption  into  the  interior  and  partly  by  the 
escape  of  the  molecules  into  the  outer  air.  The  race  is 
at  bay,  being  driven  slowly,  but  none  the  less  inevitably, 
to  extermination  by  the  road  of  thirst ;  for  the  snow-caps 
must  be  thinning  year  by  year,  and  eventually  must  al- 
together vanish  never  to  reappear. 

Criticism  of  Lowell's  Theory 

As  a  scientist,  Doctor  Lowell  was  an  excellent  fic- 
tionist.  Becoming  early  enamored  of  his  pet  idea,  he  pur- 
sued it  relentlessly,  in  season  and  out  of  season,  twist- 
ing the  most  intractable  of  facts  to  suit  his  preconcep- 
tions; reasoning  not  to  a  conclusion,  but  to  support  a 
conclusion  previously  irrevocably  resolved  upon.  Let 
us  scan  his  arguments  dispassionately  with  the  view  of 
allowing  ourselves  to  be  guided  by  the  plain  facts  rather 
than  by  predilection. 

1.  First  of  all,  there  is  the  question  of  temperature 
— climate.  When  we  say  that  the  sun  sheds  only  4-9  as 
much  heat  on  Mars  as  on  our  earth,  what  does  the  state- 


314  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

ment  mean?  By  general  understanding,  Mars,  without 
any  solar  warmth  at  all,  would  possess  a  surface  temper- 
ature in  the  neighborhood  of  the  absolute  zero,  or  — 461° 
F.  and  so  would  the  earth.  Even  receiving  the  generous 
quota  of  heat  we  do,  the  mean  annual  temperature  of 
New  York  City  is  only  53°,  of  Pittsburgh,  62°,  and  of 
Flagstaff,  where  Lowell  himself  was  stationed,  58°;  in 
other  words,  the  sun's  heat,  according  to  common  ac- 
ceptation, serves  to  raise  the  superficial  temperature  of 
our  planet  60°  +461°,  or  521°  F.!  Four-ninths  of  this 
number  is  232°,  which  being  deducted  from  — 461°  gives 
us  the  exceedingly  low  average  temperature  for  Mars  of 
229°  below  zero,  or  261°  below  the  freezing  point  of 
water!  This  is  surely  a  long  way  from  the  +48°  F.  that 
Mr.  Lowell  claims  to  have  derived  as  the  mean  tempera- 
ture for  that  planet! 

2.  Vegetation  is  the  food  basis  of  all  animal  life. 
Even  granting  a  decline  of  but  20°  in  our  mean  annual 
temperature,  complicated  with  the  same  sort  of  disas- 
trous fluctuations  we  have  now  from  week  to  week,  day 
to  day  and  even  hour  to  hour;  what  food  of  value  for  the 
sustentation  of  human  life  could  be  grown  outside  the 
tropics  I   And  allowing  there  a  reduction  of  an  additional 
twenty  degrees  would  inevitably  put  an  end  to  all  ter- 
restrial vegetation,  save  weeds,  grasses  and  non-fruit 
bearing  trees. 

3.  And  did  Professor  Lowell  in  his  zeal  really  suc- 
ceed in  persuading  himself  into  the  belief  that,  given  suffi- 
cient ice-water,  vegetation  in  the  arctic  zones  would  pro- 
ceed as  speedily  as  in  the  tropics  ?    His  own  words  leave 
no  room  for  doubt  that  such  is  his  meaning.    For,  blindly 
enamored  of  his  theory,  he  proceeds,  in  close  logical  se- 
quence, to  describe  how  first  the  coming  sun  thaws  the 
snow  cap,  then  how  the  water  is  made  to  descend  by  arti- 
ficial aid  toward  the  equator  in  the  timed  flow  of  51  miles 
daily  for  the  huge  distance  of  3,000  miles,  and  how,  in 
precise  step  with  this  flow,  the  canals,  beginning  with  the 
uppermost  in  latitude,  successively  darken  with  the  re- 
vived growth  of  vegetation.    Dramatically  he  contrasts 


MARS  AND  VENUS  315 


the  regular  poleward  trend  of  our  sprouting  season  with 
the  reversed  order  on  Mars,  and  seems  to  derive  a  dis- 
coverer's elation  from  the  circumstances  that  one  is  as 
regular  and  sequential  as  the  other!  Now,  there  are 
three  conclusive  answers  to  this  pretty  fancy  which  Mr. 
Lowell,  for  the  sake  of  bolstering  up  his  pet  idea,  stu- 
diously ignores.  One  is,  that  unless  Mars  were  much 
hotter  than  our  earth,  the  frost  in  the  polar  latitudes, 
where  Lowell  assumes  vegetation  to  get  the  earliest  start, 
must  be  perpetual,  and  vegetation  altogether  impossible, 
whether  with  or  without  water,  be  it  warm  or  cold.  The 
second  reason  is,  that  the  water  freshly  melted  from  the 
polar  drifts  would  be  veritable  ice-water,  and  would  be 
no  stimulant  to  plant-life  in  a  warm,  let  alone  in  so  frigid 
a  climate;  and,  third,  it  is  only  by  screwing  up  his  esti- 
mate of  Mars'  temperature  to  the  last  notch  that  he  can 
convince  himself  or  others  that  life,  even  on  Mars'  equa- 
tor, is  possible,  not  to  speak  of  canals  and  oases  at  its 
very  poles!  Then  there  is  the  sensible,  economical  rea- 
son, that  the  canny  Martians  of  the  tropics,  did  they  ac- 
tually exist,  should  long  ago  have  learned  to  take  thought 
for  the  future  and  to  provide  stores  of  water  against  the 
opening  of  the  new  season,  so  as  not  to  be  dependent  upon 
their  Esquimaux  for  their  early  spring  vegetables! 

4.  The  southern  snow  cap  at  the  full  covers  over  a 
quarter  of  the  planet's  surface,  and  the  northern  cap 
considerably  more  than  a  fifth.  The  snow  must  come 
from  evaporation,  must  it  not?  But  Mr.  Lowell  denies 
the  existence  of  any  evaporating  surface  save  only  of  his 
canals!  Were  the  caps  a  permanent  feature,  this  point 
might  be  overlooked;  but  the  snow  disappears  every  sum- 
mer, and  of  course  must  be  as  often  restored.  It  seems 
to  me  that  if  Mr.  Lowell  had  not  had  his  fantastic  theory 
in  mind,  he  would  have  reasoned,  sensibly,  that  the  caps 
could  not  come  into  existence  from  the  evaporation  of 
his  canals  alone.  The  caps  being  so  extensive,  and  the 
solar  heat  so  feeble,  there  must  exist  an  exceptionally 
large  evaporating  surface.  He  might  have  reasoned 
further  that  the  vapors  from  the  canals  wouldn't  extend 


316  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

his  theory  the  courtesy  of  proceeding  intact  back  to  the 
poles,  but  would,  after  the  manner  of  atmospheric  humid- 
ity, spread  in  all  directions,  and  come  down  in  rain  or 
snow  indiscriminately  over  the  whole  surface.  His 
snow  eggs  are  laid  without  the  aid  of  the  mothering 
ocean. 

5.  On  a  planet  where  warmth  is  surely  as  much  of  a 
desideratum  as  water,  we  should  expect  to  find  settle- 
ments only  in  the  very  warmest  belts.     The  hypersophis- 
ticated  Martians,  however,  have  proportionately  as  many 
canals  and  oases  in  the  very  heart  of  the  arctics  as  in  the 
best  favored  regions,  and,  marvel  of  marvels,  under- 
neath the  very  snow  caps  themselves!     For  proof,  con- 
sult Mr.  Lowell's  published  maps. 

6.  Since  these  canals  appear  to  be  feasible  every- 
where, why  did  it  not  occur  to  the  Solons  of  the  planet  to 
surround  the  snow  supply  with  a  belt  line,  and  thus  save 
themselves  the  manifestly  superfluous  task  of  boring  a 
multiplicity  of  canals  through  countless  miles  of  what 
must  be  hard-frozen  soil? 

THE  AUTHOR'S  VIEWS  ON  MARS 

Analogy  teaches  us  to  expect  seas  on  Mars,  and  un- 
til better  proofs  are  brought  forth  than  have  yet  been  ad- 
vanced in  rebuttal  of  this  reasonable  presumption,  we 
are  logically  bound  to  favor  it  against  highly  speculative 
hypotheses  such  as  that  of  Lowell's.  It  must  be  con- 
fessed that  there  is  something  wonderfully  fascinating, 
to  myself  as  well  as  to  the  Lowellians,  in  the  idea  that  on 
the  planet  so  near  us  there  may  be  a  race  of  supermen 
with  whom  future  earth-born  generations  may  one  day 
hope  to  communicate,  if  only  by  signals;  but  let  us  not 
allow  this  fancy  to  cloud  our  sober  judgments.  Those  of 
us  who  do  not  care  to  surrender  the  idea  may  keep  on 
clinging  to  it  if  they  like,  but  for  the  sake  of  truth  and 
sanity  let  us  not  wittingly  deceive  ourselves  with  plain 
delusions. 

There  is  a  maxim  of  law,  "  Where  the  reason  of  the 
law  ceases  the  law  itself  ceases, ' '  and  the  spirit  of  it  may 


MAES  AND  VENUS  317 


well  be  applied  in  this  place.  What  purpose  are  the  ca- 
nals intended  to  subserve?  Lowellians  reply,  "Irriga- 
tion". If  it  can  be  shown,  then,  that  there  is  cm  ample 
supply  of  clouds  and  moisture  on  Mars,  the  motive  for 
building  the  supposed  canal  system  falls,  and  the  whole 
theory  perishes  with  it. 

When  the  first  edition  of  this  work  was  in  prepara- 
tion (1911)  I  sought  almost  in  vain  for  published  testi- 
mony supporting  my  deduction  (from  my  theory  of  tidal 
rotation)  that  Mars  is  plentifully  supplied  with  oceans; 
and  though  more  of  such  testimony  may  have  existed  at 
the  time,  all  I  could  uncover  was  what  is  contained  in  this 
paragraph,  quoted  from  that  edition: 

In  one  place  in  his  book,  Mr.  Lowell  graphically  describes  a 
great  Martian  storm,  in  which  the  cloud  was  estimated  by  him  to 
be  flying  at  a  height  of  14  miles  above  the  planet's  surface.  He 
expresses  the  opinion  that  this  cloud  was  composed  of  sand,  "be- 
cause its  color  was  almost  that  of  the  planet's  surface,"  which,  as 
we  already  know,  he  assumes  to  be  desert.  Now  if  correspond- 
ence of  color  between  surface  and  cloud  counts  for  anything,  then 
the  cloud,  according  to  my  theory  of  a  frozen-over  ocean,  should 
have  consisted  of  snow ;  and  the  issue  narrows  as  to  whether  sand 
or  snow  is  the  likelier  element  to  be  found  at  an  altitude  of  four- 
teen miles  in  a  case  where  the  atmosphere  is  admittdly  rare. 

Since  that  year,  however,  two  oppositions  of  the 
planet  (which  occur  about  two  years  apart)  have  taken 
place,  and  it  has  been  most  carefully  studied  by  a  chain 
of  expert  observers  in  various  parts  of  the  world  led  by 
Prof.  W.  H.  Pickering  himself;  and  by  him  the  results 
have  been  elaborately  reported,  with  photographs,  in 
Popular  Astronomy,  beginning  with  its  January,  1914, 
number.  From  these  articles  I  cull  only  a  small  part  of 
a  great  wealth  of  material  to  the  same  effect: 

The  clouds  are  sometimes  so  widespread  and  numerous,  or 
perhaps  so  thin,  like  our  cirrus,  as  to  partially  conceal  the  detail 
of  a  whole  hemisphere.  This  was  the  case  in  1894,  and  again  at 
one  of  the  more  recent  oppositions.  Photography  shows  (Har- 
vard Annals  53,  167)  that  an  equatorial  belt  of  cloud  is  often 
present,  but  this  must  be  very  thin,  since  it  has  not  as  yet  been 
observed  visually.  As  regards  color,  it  may  be  noted  that  our 
own  terrestrial  clouds  are  by  no  means  as  white  as  snow.  Some- 
times when  the  sun  is  low  and  behind  us,  two  clouds  may  be  seen, 


318  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

the  nearer  of  which  is  much  darker  than  the  other,  though  it  is 
not  possible  for  either  of  them  to  be  in  shadow.  The  cause  of 
this  seems  to  be  a  matter  of  theoretical  interest  which  has  been 
neglected  by  our  meteorologists. 

The  more  conspicuous  Martian  clouds  lie  along  the  limb  of 
the  planet,  where  their  existence  can  be  most  readily  detected  by 
their  irregular  distribution.  They  are  also  found  upon  the  ter- 
minator, especially  near  opposition,  but  on  account  of  their  wider 
separation  from  one  another  they  are  not  so  conspicuous  there 
as  upon  the  limb.  Since  they  are  found  both  at  sunset  and  sun- 
rise, it  is  believed  that  cloudy  nights  are  not  infrequent  upon  the 
planet.  On  account  of  its  comparatively  low  pressure,  the  at- 
mosphere of  Mars  must  at  certain  seasons  contain  a  larger  pro- 
portion of  water  vapor  than  that  of  the  earth.  Some  of  this 
would  be  precipitated  at  night  by  the  cold,  and  cloudy  nights  are 
therefore  what  we  might  naturally  expect. 

It  is  believed  that  the  annual  circulation  of  moisture  from 
pole  to  pole  takes  place  upon  Mars  as  upon  the  Earth,  chiefly  by 
floods  and  through  the  atmosphere.  Upon  the  Earth  our  floods 
are  taken  care  of,  except  in  a  small  way,  cosmically  speaking,  by 
our  oceans,  but  on  Mars  they  must  be  much  more  severe.  Even 
upon  the  Earth,  however,  where  large  masses  of  land  occur  and 
the  snow  fall  is  heavy,  as  in  Siberia,  the  spring  floods  offer  a 
startling  demonstration  of  the  intensity  of  our  sunlight  Com- 
pared to  one  of  these  huge  Siberian  freshets,  our  own  western 
floods  sink  into  insignificance. 

On  January  13,  1914,  Professor  Lowell  reported  that  the 
Martian  southern  cap  was  beginning  in  stippled  patches  of  hoar- 
frost, between  longitudes  30°  and  60°.  Our  own  next  view  of 
this  region  was  on  February  7,  when  it  was  occupied  by  a  cloud 
1200  miles  in  length.  The  cloudy  area  increased  in  size  the  next 
night  to  1800  miles,  but  two  nights  later  was  again  smaller  meas- 
uring 1500  miles.  February  12  it  had  entirely  disappeared.  The 
following  night  all  the  south  polar  regions  were  recorded  as  very 
dark,  with  no  trace  of  cloud.  February  14  a  crescent  of  haze  lay 
along  the  whole  length  of  the  limb  and  part  of  the  terminator,  ex- 
tending half-way  to  the  center  of  the  disk,  entirely  concealing  the 
polar  regions.  After  this  the  area  in  question  passed  around  to 
the  other  side  of  the  planet,  and  we  saw  no  more  of  it:  We  are 
quite  clear  however  that  there  was  no  hoarfrost  or  permanent 
snow  area  there  on  either  February  12  or  13.  The  writer  does 
not  believe  that  the  hoarfrost  is  ever  seen  far  from  the  sunrise 
terminator,  and  he  would  suggest  that  what  Professor  Lowell 
interprets  as  hoarfrost  is  described  here  as  cloud.  The  appear- 
ance noted  here  has  a  white  pearly  lustre,  clearly  fainter  than 
the  snow  at  the  north  pole,  but  brighter  and  much  whiter  than 
the  desert  areas  of  the  planet. 


MARS  AND  VENUS  319 


White  cloud  is  occasionally  seen  in  the  equatorial  regions 
close  to  the  limb,  but  when  it  gets  nearer  the  center  of  the  disk 
it  turns  yellow,  owing  doubtless,  as  previously  stated,  to  its  thin- 
ness, and  to  the  fact  that  we  see  the  soil  between  separated  small 
clouds.  Our  own  cumulus  clouds  often  have  a  bluish  tint,  even 
near  thin  centers,  when  they  are  forming  or  dissolving,  and  are 
therefore  thin  enough  for  us  to  see  our  blue  sky  through  them. 

It  is  the  writer's  impression  that  the  meteorology  of  Mars 
resembles  very  closely  that  of  the  earth,  much  more  closely  than 
has  heretofore  been  supposed.  Clouds  are  numerous  on  both 
planets  but  they  are  more  so  in  the  daytime  with  us,  and  possess 
greater  density.  It  is  believed  for  theoretical  reasons  that  the 
northerly  and  southerly  components  of  their  winds  are  more 
marked  than  ours,  that  their  daily  range  of  temperature  is  greater, 
and  that  their  precipitation  usually  occurs  at  night,  but  except  in 
these  respects  the  meteorology  of  the  two  planets  is  practically 
identical.  *  *  * 

For  many  years  Martian  observers  have  been  in  the  habit  of 
reporting  marked  changes  as  occasionally  occurring  upon  the 
planet,  but  the  writer  believes  that  a  considerable  proportion  of 
these,  perhaps  a  third,  were  due  simply  to  shifting  clouds.  Thus 
the  numerous  and  marked  changes  in  size  of  the  southern  polar 
cap  at  this  opposition  are  almost  certainly  due  to  nothing  more 
complex  than  the  formation  and  dissolution  of  cloud  areas.  The 
sudden  appearance  of  two  lakes  and  four  canals  in  the  Protei 
Regio  on  December  31,  where  on  the  previous  night  only  a  whitish 
area  was  visible,  was  presumably  due  to  the  clearing  away  of 
clouds.  Possibly  the  fact  that  certain  narrow  canals  were  seen 
south  of  the  Sabaeus  in  January,  which  were  not  seen  on  Febru- 
ary 14  to  16,  though  near  the  center  of  the  disk,  with  seeing  12 
and  10,  is  due  to  their  having  been  hidden  by  invisible,  because 
partially  transparent,  cloud  masses.  (April,  1914) 

When  any  of  the  large  polar  marshes,  but  especially 
Acidalium,  come  around  the  sunrise  limb,  they  are  usually  fol- 
lowed at  a  distance,  sometimes  as  great  as  200  miles,  by  a  yellow 
or  white  area  of  considerable  size.  The  former  color  indicates 
cloud,  and  is  the  commoner  of  the  two.  The  white  probably  in- 
dicates a  thm  layer  of  new  fallen  snow.  It  must  be  thin,  since 
it  never  persists  to  the  central  meridian.  On  October  9,  Martian 
date  February  48,  a  pure  white  area  one-third  the  size  of  the 
polar  cap  and  of  the  same  whiteness  and  brilliancy,  following  the 
Adicalium  marsh  stretched  from  the  sunrise  limb  to  within  45°  of 
the  central  meridian.  It  must  have  been  an  unusually  heavy  fall 
for  Mars,  for  this  would  indicate  that  it  persisted  until  nearly  n 
o'clock  in  the  Martian  morning.  Its  size  was  rather  difficult  to 
determine  for,  unlike  the  snow  cap,  it  had  no  sharply  denned 
southern  boundary.  It  stretched  about  600  miles  south  from  the 


320 FBOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

polar  cap,  or  through  some  16°,  to  latitude  37°,  and  must  have 
covered  nearly  a  million  square  miles  of  surface  in  the  visible 
hemisphere,  and  very  likely  much  more  on  the  other  side  of  the 
planet.  (Dec.,  1915). 

The  snow  cap  is  now  appreciably  smaller  than  it  was  at  the 
last  opposition,  at  the  same  season  of  the  year.  Since  as  we  have 
already  seen  it  was  much  larger  earlier  in  the  season  than  at  the 
former  opposition,  we  can  hardly  doubt  but  that  they  have  been 
having  rather  warmer  weather  on  Mars  this  year.  It  will  be  of 
interest  to  note  if  this  means  a  warmer  summer  than  usual  for 
our  Earth. 

It  may  be  mentioned  here  that  although  we  have  watched  the 
planet  under  very  satisfactory  circumstances  throughout  the 
whole  of  the  spring  of  its  northern  hemisphere,  yet  not  a  trace  of 
green  has  been  detected  in  that  region.  The  impression  gathered 
has  been  that  all  the  dark  northern  areas,  and  most  of  the  canals 
observed  have  been  simply  marshes,  or  moistened  soil.  Possibly 
greens  will  appear  in  their  autumn  or  before.  On  the  other  hand 
the  greens  of  the  southern  hemisphere,  during  their  autumn,  have 
been  at  times  very  striking.  They  have  now  all  disappeared. 

The  writer  would  point  out  that  the  clouds  always  lie  over 
the  so-called  desert  regions  of  the  planet,  apparently  being  pre- 
cipitated as  soon  as  the  fertile  regions  are  reached.  This  is 
clearly  shown  in  Figure  14,  where  the  cloud  following  Charontis 
is  also  indicated,  half  covering  Elysium.  This  was  not  an  unusual 
feature  in  this  region  in  the  Martian  mornings,  indicating  doubt- 
less that  Charontis  like  Acidalium  is  composed  of  moist  or  marshy 
land.  Incomplete  canals,  i.  e.  elongated  marshes,  disappearing  in 
the  desert,  are  shown  in  many  of  the  drawings,  by  most  of  the 
observers.  Such  a  thing  like  an  incomplete  canal  was  formerly 
supposed  not  to  exist.  (Dec.,  1916). 

Unlike  our  polar  ice  caps,  which  are  perpetual,  Mars' 
snow  caps  totally  disappear  every  recurring  summer  sea- 
son, and  just  as  regularly  reappear  during  the  ensuing 
autumn.  This  circumstance  has  led  Lowell  and  astron- 
omers in  general  to  suppose  that  the  snow  sheet  must  be 
exceedingly  thin  to  yield  so  completely  and  so  readily  to 
the  sun's  warmth,  especially  when  it  is  remembered  how 
feeble  must  be  the  solar  rays,  not  simply  at  Mars'  dis- 
tance but  at  his  poles.  Their  error  lies  in  assuming  that 
there  is  only  one  way  by  which  snow  can  be  dissolved, 
namely,  by  heat ;  whereas  there  is  this  other — BY  FLOOD- 
ING. Lowell,  in  words  almost  emphatic,  describes  Mars 
as  being  remarkably  smooth,  or  level,  no  roughness  of 


MARS  AND  VENUS  321 


any  sort  being  discoverable  on  his  surface.  We  have 
only  to  surmise,  then,  that  in  the  frigid  season  the  polar 
oceans  freeze  solid  and  dry,  thus  supplying  a  resting 
place  for  the  snow,  and  that,  during  the  warm  season 
following,  this  ice  either  disintegrates  and  loses  itself, 
along  with  its  cargoes  of  snow,  in  the  ocean ;  or  that  the 
ice  fields  are  periodically  swept  over  by  tides  from  the 
warmer  equatorial  zones;  or  that  the  rains  wash  down 
the  snow  until  it  turns  to  slush  and  so  loses  its  virgin 
whiteness.  Surely,  there  is  no  mystery  here! 

Mars'  polar  caps  are  exceptionally  extensive,  and 
for  their  production  demand  the  existence  of  a  relatively 
large  ocean  surface.  This  requirement  is  rendered  more 
imperative  by  the  sun's  remoteness,  and  is  even  further 
accentuated  by  the  compulsory  exclusion  from  the  avail- 
able evaporating  surface  of  that  part  of  it  covered,  for 
the  time  being,  by  the  opposite  cap. 

If  Mars'  seas  bear  a  similar  ratio  to  its  solid  kernel 
as  ours  do  to  the  earth's,  three-fifths  of  his  surface  must 
be  covered  to  the  depth  of  a  mile  or  more.  This  assump- 
tion, it  may  be  said,  is  sustained  by  my  theory  that  the 
earth's  axial  rotation  is  due  to  the  sun's  tidal  action. 
Mars  rotates  on  its  axis  once  in  24  hrs.  40  ms.,  a  period 
reasonably  consistent  with  the  earth's  case,  especially 
when  their  respective  masses  and  solar  distances  are 
taken  into  the  reckoning. 

The  center  of  gravity  of  Mars  (according  to  my  ar- 
gument regarding  the  earth)  lies  toward  its  north  pole, 
and  conformably  we  can  see  the  outcropping  of  land 
there  revealed  by  the  persistent  presence  of  6°  of  north- 
ern cap,  whereas  the  southern  cap  seasonally  disappears 
completely. 

The  conclusion  is  inevitable :  The  hitherto  supposed 
"lands",  with  the  possible  exception  of  the  Hue-green 
patches,  must,  after  all,  be  SEAS,  and  the  riddle  of  the 
markings  must  be  solved  on  this  basis. 

Now,  it  goes  without  saying  that  oceans  in  their  fluid 
state  often  exhibit  great  waves ;  but  these  quickly  vanish 
and  leave  no  permanent  signs.  The  insistent  reality 
about  Mars,  however,  is  its  frigidity,  and  this  fact  ought 


322  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

long  ago  to  have  prompted  the  thought  that  the  oceans 
may  be  normally  frozen  over,  in  which  state  they  can  as 
easily  carry  surface  markings  as  the  most  rigid  land,  and 
more  regular  ones,  besides. 

It  would  be  an  error  to  jump  to  the  conclusion  that 
Mars'  oceans  must  be  frozen  solid,  for  decidedly  they 
are  not.  For  one  thing,  the  planet  could  not  rotate  un- 
less they  were  mobile,  as  I  have  previously  shown;  and, 
for  another,  the  gravistatic  heat  generated  by  the  planet 
is  probably  sufficient  to  prevent  total  congelation.  Nor 
should  we  fail  to  bear  in  mind,  that  the  water  at  the  bot- 
tom of  a  deep  ocean  cannot  freeze,  because  of  its  density 
there  being  constantly  maintained  above  that  required 
for  freezing. 

That  Mars'  gravistatic  heat  is  by  no  means  a  negli- 
bible  quantity  maybe  proved  by  a  simple  calculation. 
Mars'  superficial  gravity  being  .38,  one  would  have  to 
descend  toward  his  center  about  150  feet  for  each  degree 
of  increase  in  temperature,  yielding  a  maximum  theoreti- 
cal temperature  at  that  point  of  about  40,000  degrees,  or 
an  average  of  20,000  for  the  whole  mass.  This  is  a  much 
lower  temperature  than  our  earth  theoretically  generates 
and  may  seem  insufficient  until  we  call  to  mind  that  Mars ' 
rarer  atmosphere  and  lesser  gravity  both  operate  to 
greatly  lower  the  freezing  point  of  the  water,  and  that 
ice  is  a  bad  conductor  of  heat  as  compared  with  convec- 
tion currents  in  a  purely  fluid  sea. 

The  excessive  external  cold  must  evince  itself  some- 
how, and  this  it  does  by  freezing  a  thick  crust  over  a 
major  portion  of  the  ocean  surface.  Nevertheless,  even 
such  a  surface  may  experience  seasonal  changes,  and  this 
is  the  real  key  to  the  whole  mystery.  It  remains  for  us 
now  only  to  reason  by  natural  steps  just  what  would  take 
place  under  such  conditions. 

Going  toward  our  own  north  pole  we  come  eventually 
to  a  parallel  of  latitude  of  perpetual  frost.  In  the  case0 
of  Mars  this  critical  parallel  is  nearer  the  equator  than 
it  is  with  us.  During  the  warm  season  the  ice-crust 
thaws  to  the  depth  of  a  very  few  feet,  but  not  entirely 
through,  except,  perhaps,  very  late  in  the  season,  and 


MARS  Am>  VENUS  323 


then  only  right  at  the  equator  where  the  crust  is  thinnest. 
So  cold  must  be  the  planet  that  the  sun  would  be  power- 
less to  cause  evaporation  were  it  not  for  the  accidental 
circumstance  mentioned  a  moment  ago  that,  on  account 
of  the  diminished  surface  gravity  and  lower  atmospheric 
pressure,  the  boiling  point  of  water  there  is  reduced  from 
our  212°  F.  to  about  100°,  and  the  thawing  point  corre- 
spondingly. 

The  process  of  evaporation  takes  place  from  the  sur- 
face of  this  glacial  crust,  or  rather  from  the  surface  of 
the  thaw-sheet  submerging  that  crust,  during  the  day- 
light hours  of  Mars'  protracted  northern  spring  of  199 
days  and  his  scarcely  shorter  summer  of  183  days.  The 
nights  are  relatively  cold,  and  during  them  much  snow 
falls  upon  the  thaw-softened  surface,  thus  giving  birth 
in  the  course  of  time  to  a  vast  superficial  litter  of  disin- 
tegrated ice  extending  far  into  the  high  latitudes. 

When  this  condition  reaches  a  maximum,  this  super- 
ficial sheet  of  thaw-water  is  of  itself  sufficiently  deep  (or 
perhaps  is  sufficiently  reinforced  by  the  subjacent  waters 
breaking  through  the  softened  crust  at  or  near  the  equa- 
tor) to  reflect  in  its  movements  the  tidal  effect  of  the  sun. 
Waves  of  wide  scope  are  formed,  which  progress  with  a 
high  degree  of  regularity  over  the  smooth,  solid  ice  shelf, 
sweeping  the  glacial  detritus  before  them  until,  having 
reached  the  limit  of  their  range,  they  deposit  their  car- 
goes in  long,  geometrical  tidal  lines,  which  then  form  em- 
bryonic ridges,  or  dams,  for  future  waves  and  new  car- 
goes to  respect  and  add  to ;  until  in  the  end  the  accumula- 
tions grow  to  a  width  capable  of  arresting  our  attention 
even  over  this  vast  abyss  of  space.  Veritable  congealed 
tidal  waves  are  they,  following,  by  the  very  law  of  their 
formation,  the  great  circles  of  the  planet,  and  supported 
from  beneath  by  the  continuous,  far-spreading,  perma- 
nent ice-crust.  As  the  sun  moves  northward  or  south- 
ward, the  new  waves  that  keep  forming  take  slightly  dif- 
ferent courses,  and  give  rise  to  new  " canals." 

Now,  when  waves  touch  or  cross  they  "interfere," 
and  create  at  the  points  of  intersection  hills  of  double 
height  and  width.  This,  I  take  it,  is  the  origin  of  the 


324  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 


" oases ",  and  of  the  curious  " carets".  On  this  theory 
it  ceases  to  be  mysterious  why  both  canals  and  oases  are 
so  segregated,  why  so  many  of  them  affect  the  polar 
regions,  and  why  they  connect  the  " salient  points." 

The  dams,  being  composed  of  ice,  would  melt  away 
were  they  not  seasonally  recruited.  But  they  are  so  re- 
cruited, as  the  gemination  process  eloquently  attests. 
The  seasonal  or  capricious  lightening  and  darkening  of 
the  canals  may  be  aptly  explained  by  fresh  snowfalls,  or 
by  the  meltings  of  old  snows ;  doubtless  as  common  and 
natural  climatic  phenomena  there  as  here,  and  not 
especially  significant. 

The  same  explanation  ought  to  suffice  for  similar 
general  variations  of  color.  The  brilliant  white  diamond 
points  which  Mr.  Lowell  describes  can  assuredly  be  noth- 
ing else  than  islands  capped  with  snow — his  own  theory 
of  an  exclusively  land  surface  precluding  him  from  ad- 
vancing the  same  natural  solution.  Should  any  of  these 
ever  be  detected  changing  its  place,  it  could  be  explained 
as  a  floating  iceberg  decked  with  snow. 

My  conclusions,  then,  as  to  the  character  of  Mars' 
surface  are :  That  the  planet  is  largely  enveloped  by  its 
oceans;  that  these  in  turn  are  frozen  into  great  solid,  un- 
broken ice-blocks  reposing  on  their  pressure-liquefied 
bases,  and  that  whatever  markings  and  irregularities 
may  exist  on  their  surfaces,  ivhether  comporting  with 
Mr.  Lowell's  reported  observations  or  not,  are  the 
natural  result  of  seasonal  changes  and  tidal  wash.  Un- 
der these  conditions  the  planet  is  not  habitable  by  any  but 
the  very  lowest  forms  of  life,  and  can  never  in  the  past 
have  been  any  better  fitted  to  support  life  than  it  is  to- 
day. 

THE  PLANET  VENUS 

We  have  now  seen  that  the  proportion  of  water,  in 
one  or  another  of  its  forms,  to  the  solid  ball  is  practically 
the  same  in  the  cases  of  both  Mars  and  the  earth ;  and  we 
seem  therefore  constrained  to  conclude  that  the  same 
thing  is  true  of  Venus.  Now,  since  Venus  is  almost  as 


MARS  AND  VENUS  325 


large  as  the  earth,  its  gravistatic  heat  suffices  to  preserve 
its  oceans  in  a  fluid  state,  all  the  more  so  from  the  fact 
that  it  receives  about  twice  as  much  solar  heat  as  does 
our  planet.  Venus  therefore  rotates  on  its  axis.  Again, 
since  the  planet  is  so  close  to  the  sun,  its  atmosphere  is 
immensely  more  humid  than  ours,  and  its  surface  conse- 
quently shrouded  in  perpetual  and  universal  fog;  so  that 
we  can  never  hope  to  obtain  even  a  glimpse  of  its  real 
face. 

If,  now,  we  assume  that  life  is  not  a  happy  accident 
of  Nature's,  but  the  inevitable  outcome  of  her  inherent 
energies  and  laws,  we  are  driven  to  admit  the  existence 
of  life  on  Venus,  but  not  necessarily  of  intelligent  life. 
Judging  from  terrestrial  analogy  it  should  rather  be 
marine  and  amphibian  in  character,  on  account  of  the 
difficulty  of  lung-breathing;  and,  moreover,  it  should  be 
confined  to  the  arctic  regions  because  of  what  must  be  the 
insupportable  torridity  of  Venus 's  lower  latitudes. 


XIII 


THE  MOON 

THE  general  reader  would  naturally  suppose  that 
since  we  are  able  to  form  an  idea  regarding  the 
character  of  Mars'  surface,  which,  at  the  best,  is 
more  than  140  times  as  far  from  us  as  is  our  satellite,  it 
should  be  a  comparatively  simple  matter  to  construe  the 
lineaments  of  the  moon.  Such,  however,  has  not  proved 
to  be  the  case.  In  round  numbers  the  moon  is  only  240,000 
miles  from  us,  and  has  a  diameter  of  2163  miles,  being  a 
fraction  over  half  that  of  Mars.  When  viewed  through  a 
telescope  of  about  400  diameters  (which  is  found  by  ex- 
perience to  be  the  most  satisfactory,  everything  con- 
sidered) ,  it  is  possible  to  perceive,  though  as  a  mere 
point,  any  feature  upon  its  surface  as  large  as  an  ordi- 
nary city  block. 

There  are  two  peculiarities  about  the  moon  which 
have  puzzled  astronomers  beyond  measure  and  which  un- 
til the  initial  appearance  of  this  work,  in  1912,  had  es- 
caped their  true  solution.  One  of  these  is  that  it  pre- 
sents only  one  side  toward  us,  and  the  other,  that  its 
topography  appears  to  be  so  abnormally  volcanic  in  char- 
acter. 


THE  MOON  327 


PROBLEM  OF  THE  MOON'S  MOTION 

It  is  truly  singular  that  axial  rotation,  the  cause 
whereof  savants  have  never  yet  managed  to  guess,  has 
been  assumed  to  be  the  natural  thing,  whereas  a  condi- 
tion of  inertness  and  stability  is  all  their  dynamical  pre- 
mises give  them  the  right  to  expect.  So  far  as  we  know, 
Mercury  (the  smallest  of  the  planets)  and  the  only  satel- 
lites of  other  planets  susceptible  of  sufficiently  definite 
telescopic  examination  (namely,  some  of  Jupiter's)  ex- 
hibit the  same  idiosyncrasy  of  motion  as  does  the  moon. 
It  is  positively  unthinkable  that  such  a  uniformity  of  ro- 
tation can  be  the  result  of  mere  chance ;  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, it  must  be  due,  not  only  to  a  similarity  of  causes, 
but  to  such  causes  as  inevitably  lead  to  the  one  result. 
Astronomers  have  invariably  approached  this  problem  by 
assuming  initial  rapid  rotations  (not  attempting  to  ex- 
plain them)  and  thence  toning  these  down,  with  their 
imaginary  tidal  brakes,  to  fit  the  observations. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  moon  doesn't  rotate  on  its 
axis  in  any  true  sense;  that  is  to  say,  it  hasn't  an  inher- 
ent motion  of  that  character,  any  more  than  a  balloon 
could  be  said  to  have  were  it  also  to  circumnavigate  our 
globe.  Not  having  any  fluid  oceans,  our  satellite  has 
simply  settled  into  a  position  of  stable  equilibrium,  bal- 
last down,  on  the  familiar  principle  of  the  loaded  die. 

In  this  attitude  the  moon  makes  a  circuit  about  the 
earth  every  27-J4  days,  the  plane  of  its  orbit  being  ap- 
proximately the  same  as  that  of  the  earth's  round  the 
sun,  so  that  we  have  what  are  known  as  lunar  phases. 

Now,  the  moon  has  a  peculiar  trick,  in  rounding 
from  full  to  last  quarter,  of  seeming  to  turn  gently  to 
the  east  so  as  to  hide  a  part  of  that  edge  and  simultane- 
ously expose  an  equal  segment  or  crescent  around  the 
westerly  limb.  After  passing  the  quarter,  the  body 
swings  just  as  gradually  backward  until  at  "new".  Were 
it  then  visible,  we  should  see  its  face  precisely  as  it  is  at 
full.  In  the  latter  half  of  its  circuit  the  same  maneuver 
is  repeated,  except  that  there  we  get  to  see  an  extra  cres- 
cent around  the  other,  or  easterly,  edge.  This  phenome- 
non is  what  is  known  as  the  "longitudinal  libration". 


328  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

In  order  to  solve  this  peculiarity  it  will  be  necessary 
to  mention  another  fact  or  two  by  way  of  preliminary. 
The  gravitational  attraction  of  the  sun  on  the  moon,  after 
all  allowances  as  to  distances  are  made,  is  a  little  more 
than  twice  that  of  the  earth.  Hence  it  may  be  asked  why 
the  moon  does  not  settle  with  its  center  of  gravity  turned 
sunward  instead  of  earthward,  in  which  case  it  would 
show  every  side  of  itself  to  us,  but  keep  one  side  per- 
petually directed  toward  the  sun.  The  answer  to  this  is 
not  difficult.  The  test  is  not  one  of  degree  of  power 
alone,  but  of  differentiation  of  power.  For  the  sun  being 
some  400  times  more  distant  than  the  earth,  the  angle 
formed  by  two  lines  drawn  from  his  center  to  the  two 
points  marking  respectively  the  center  of  figure  and  the 
center  of  gravity  of  the  moon  (for  the  two  are  by  no 
means  identical)  will  be  only  1/400  as  great  as  a  similar 
angle  formed  by  lines  so  drawn  from  the  earth's  center. 
Hence  the  sun  cannot  bring  his  greater  strength  so  well 
to  bear.  It  is  a  question  of  leverage,  or  twist.  Now,  as 
the  moon  progresses  in  her  orbit  she  keeps  shifting  her 
angular  position  relatively  to  these  rival  attractions  of 
sun  and  earth,  and  this  it  is  that  produces  the  libration 
in  question.  Thus,  when  she  is  at  new,  and  again  at  full, 
the  sun  and  earth  act  along  the  same  straight  line,  but 
when  she  is  at  the  quarters  their  attractions  conflict  most, 
and  the  moon  swings  east  or  west  accordingly. 

Here  there  arises  an  interesting  problem  on  which 
we  may  now  gain  some  light :  How  far  would  the  moon 
need  to  be  removed  from  the  earth  toward  the  sun  in 
order  to  convert  her  from  a  satellite  of  the  earth  into  a 
primary  planet?  As  matters  stand,  when  the  moon 
passes  between  the  other  two,  her  motion  is  relatively 
retrograde  with  reference  to  the  sun,  but  direct  with  ref- 
erence to  the  earth.  To  effect  the  conversion,  then,  from 
satellite  into  planet,  she  must  exactly  reverse  this  order 
of  motion — a  process  which  obviously  would  not  take  ef- 
fect spasmodically  but  by  infinitely  slow  degrees,  and 
during  which  she  would  gradually  become  more  and  more 
distinctly  " retrograde"  in  character.  In  order  for  the 
sun  to  succeed  in  " wrenching"  the  earth  and  moon 


THE  MOON  329 


apart  in  this  way,  his  leverage  on  the  moon  must,  of 
course,  be  increased  relatively  to  that  of  the  earth,  and 
as  leverage  varies  inversely  with  distance,  we  easily  per- 
ceive that  the  moon  will  become  a  planet  when 

M  ^*^      m 


in  which  M  represents  the  mass  of  the  sun,  D  his  lunar 
distance ;  and  m  and  d  the  mass  and  lunar  distance  of  our 
earth  respectively.  Substituting  the  known  values  for 
M,  D,  and  m  and  performing  the  operation,  we  obtain  for 
the  value  of  d,  1,330,000  miles. 

In  a  former  chapter  I  explained  how  the  earth  and 
moon  together  are  kept  revolving  around  the  sun  by  the 
action  of  the  Prime  Eesultant,  so  that,  including  it,  we 
have  three  rival  forces  continually  pulling  at  the  moon, 
all  together  being  capable  of  accounting  from  instant  to 
instant  for  all  her  varying  movements.  If,  now,  to  these 
were  added  an  inherent  arbitrary  rotation,  as  predicated 
by  current  theory,  it  is  plain  that  the  moon's  safety 
would  be  imperilled.  Like  a  weather  vane  she  has  to  be, 
and  she  is,  free  to  respond  automatically  to  the  eddying 
currents  continually  playing  upon  her,  only  in  this  case 
the  "currents"  are  gravitational  instead  of  atmospheric 
in  their  nature. 

PROBLEM  OF  THE  LUNAR  SURFACE 

Generally  speaking,  the  moon  has  a  mottled  appear- 
ance, consisting  of  great  drab  splotches  on  a  silver  shield. 
In  Galileo's  lifetime,  and  for  many  years  afterward, 
these  splotches  were  looked  upon  as  seas,  and  they  are 
still  so  called  by  the  Latin  equivalent,  maria.  However, 
they  are  no  longer  regarded  by  scientists  in  this  light, 
owing  to  the  fact  that  the  improvement  of  the  telescope 
long  ago  revealed  many  permanent  markings  on  the  beds 
of  the  supposed  oceans  which,  of  course,  could  not  exist 
on  a  liquid  surface.  In  addition  to  this  ocular  evidence 
that  the  term  maria  is  a  misnomer,  observers  of  the  satel- 
lite unanimously  certify  that  they  have  never  been  able 


330  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

to  discover  any  rain  clouds  in  the  lunar  atmosphere. 
Indeed,  even  in  this  matter  of  atmosphere  the  moon  ap- 
pears to  be  no  less  destitute,  the  proof  whereof  consists 
in  the  circumstance  that  when  stars  are  occulted  by  her, 
as  occasionally  happens,  they  disappear  and  reappear 
suddenly  without  exhibiting  any  signs  of  atmospheric 
refraction. 

This  poverty  of  the  moon  in  water  and  air  may  be 
due  to  one  of  four  reasons;  first,  to  a  scantiness  in  the 
original  endowment  of  the  body  in  these  two  elements, 
or,  second,  to  the  subsequent  escape  of  their  swifter  mole- 
cules, as  suggested  by  Doctor  Stoney,  or,  third,  to  per- 
colation and  absorption  into  the  moon's  interior,  or, 
fourth,  to  transformation  into  another  state  or  substance 
wliereby  they  have  become  masked  and  unrecognizable. 
Of  these  four  hypotheses,  it  seems,  contemporary  scien- 
tists have  finally  settled  upon  the  second  as  the  nearest 
approximation  to  the  truth  yet  proposed  (though  still 
admittedly  far  from  satisfactory)  while  the  last,  and,  as 
I  hold,  the  true  one,  seems  never  heretofore  even  to  have 
been  thought  of,  much  less  discussed. 

The  most  remarkable  thing  about  the  strange  mark- 
ings on  the  lunar  ocean  beds  is  not  the  fact  of  their  exist- 
ence, nor  even  the  peculiarity  of  their  shapes,  but  the 
singular  resemblance  which  they  bear  to  the  extraordi- 
nary structures  that  exist  in  such  profusion  on  the  con- 
tinental areas.  The  same  forces  that  modeled  the  first 
class  must  have  unquestionably  modeled  the  secondt 
The  only  substantial  difference  between  the  two  orders 
is  one  of  scale,  those  on  the  continents  vastly  exceeding 
the  others  in  height;  although  there  exists  this  minor 
distinction,  that  the  configurations  occupying  the  bottoms 
exhibit  more  of  a  ruinous  appearance. 

Compared  to  the  earth's,  the  lunar  surface  is  ever 
so  much  rougher,  and  these  roughnesses  differ  so  funda- 
mentally in  their  general  character  as  to  compel  the  con- 
viction that  they  owe  themselves  to  radically  different 
modeling  forces.  Let  us,  if  you  please,  examine  some  of 
the  principal  of  these 


THE  MOON  331 


CHARACTERISTIC  LUNAR  SURFACE  FEATURES 

CRATERS.  Undoubtedly  the  most  striking  of  these 
features  is  what  is  known  as  the  craters,  a  name  derived 
from  their  likeness  to  the  mouths  of  terrestrial  volcanoes, 
— a  resemblance,  however,  that  is  only  skin  deep,  and 
means  nothing.  To  make  out  the  general  contour  of 
these  peculiar  figures,  no  higher  telescopic  power  is  re- 
quired than  Galileo  had  available,  and  the  probability  is 
that  with  his  first  glance  through  the  instrument  he  in- 
terpreted them  as  indeed  volcanic;  and  that  interpreta- 
tion is  the  one  which,  in  spite  of  later  arrivals,  commands 
the  largest  following  to  this  day.  The  only  other  hypoth- 
esis that  may  be  said  to  have  gained  anything  like  gen- 
eral acceptance  among  professional  astronomers  is  that 
formulated  by  Professor  G.  K.  Gilbert,  in  1892,  and 
known  as  the  Bolide  or  Impact  theory,  which  holds  that 
the  Craters  are  the  pit  holes  made  by  the  blows  of  fallen 
meteorites. 

These  lunar  craters  vary  incredibly  in  size,  ranging 
as  they  do  from  more  than  a  hundred  miles  in  diameter 
down  to  a  size  hardly  perceptible  through  the  best  tele- 
scopes ;  indicating  clearly  that,  for  aught  we  can  say,  they 
may  exist  even  as  narrow  as  a  few  feet,  or  even  a  few 
inches ;  which  is  what  I  claim  to  be  actually  the  case.  In 
the  multiplicity  of  their  visible  number  these  craters  are 
no  less  remarkable,  running  literally  into  the  thousands ; 
and  they  are,  also,  amazingly  diversified  as  well — yet, 
for  all  that,  there  is  no  mistaking  their  general  kinship. 
This  latter  consists  in  two  things,  namely,  that  they  all 
possess  a  surrounding  wall  or  circumvallation,  and,  sec- 
ond, that  the  land  craters  are  bolder  in  relief  and  more 
sharply  outlined  than  their  squat  brethren  on  the  maria 
floors.  To  all  intents  and  purposes,  indeed,  the  maria 
themselves  are  indistinguishable  from  the  craters,  save  in 
the  one  particular  of  size. 

Their  individual  differences,  however,  are  legion. 
In  some  craters  the  encompassing  walls  are  as  much  as 
four  or  five  miles  in  height,  while  in  others,  even  of  very 
large  ground  plan,  the  rampart  is  scarcely  tall  enough 


332  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

to  be  distinguishable;  in  some  the  enclosed  plain  is  as 
level  as  a  floor,  in  others  it  is  studded  with  cones  whose 
peaks  rise  as  high  as  the  rampart  itself ;  in  some  the  wall 
is  practically  complete  and  of  fairly  uniform  height, 
while  in  the  case  of  a  near  neighbor  the  very  reverse  may 
be  the  case.  In  those  craters  where  the  walls  are  very 
tall,  they  are  terraced  on  the  inside,  while,  in  those  whose 
ramparts  are  low,  or  of  moderate  altitude,  the  inside  wall 
is  usually  sharply  precipitous.  There  are  not  a  few  in- 
stances where  two,  or  even  several,  crater  walls  impinge, 
and  one  appears  to  mount  higher  on  the  ruins  of  the 
other  or  others.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  some  iso- 
lated craters  that  have  great  breaches  in  their  bastions, 
breaches  that  cleave  clear  down  to  the  ground  and  con- 
tinue thence  as  canyons  for  scores  and  hundreds  of  miles 
through  a  most  rugged  country,  not  following  the  valleys, 
mark  you,  but  straight  through  the  highest  mountains. 

Yet,  though  all  the  foregoing  enumerated  details  are 
severally  of  great  importance,  and  should  be  rehearsed 
by  the  conscientious  student  with  attentive  care,  the  two 
most  significant,  because  explicatory,  facts  about  these 
craters  are,  first,  that  the  deeper  the  crater  the  more 
does  the  bottom  of  its  pit  extend  down  below  the  general 
level  of  the  surface,  much  as  though  some  giant  had  dug 
out  a  well  and  piled  the  excavated  earth  around  the  brim, 
thereby  making  the  shaft  doubly  deep ;  and,  second,  that, 
steep  as  may  be  the  inner  wall,  the  outer  invariably  slopes 
gently  away  to  nothing,  unless  some  obviously  independ- 
ent formation  rises  to  obstruct  its  normal  trend. 

WHITE  RAYS.  "The  most  puzzling  feature  of  the 
surf  ace ",  says  Professor  E.  W.  Brown  ( Americana)  f 
"  consists  in  a  series  of  white  rays  or  streaks  which  radi- 
ate from  a  few  of  the  principal  craters  in  every  direction. 
In  their  brightness  they  mask  all  other  shades  of  tint  on 
the  surface  and  seem  to  continue  their  course,  sometimes 
for  hundreds  of  miles,  quite  independently  of  the  nature 
of  the  country  they  cross.  Professor  W.  H.  Pickering, 
however,  who  has  studied  the  systems  carefully,  con- 
siders that  their  actual  length  has  been  much  exag- 


THE  MOON  333 


gerated  and  believes  that  the  apparent  length  is  due  to 
lines  of  small  craters  from  which  they  emerge.  The 
most  remarkable  system  is  that  starting  from  the  crater 
Tycho,  itself  of  a  brilliant  whiteness,  and  giving  the 
whole  region  the  appearance  of  a  globe  cracked  by  inter- 
nal pressure — a  suggestion  made  by  Nasmyth,  who 
actually  cracked  a  glass  globe  in  this  way  and  obtained 
a  striking  resemblance". 

SEAS.  Of  these  the  same  writer  says,  "The  so-called 
seas  of  the  moon  are  simply  portions  of  the  surface 
darker  in  color  than  the  average  and  very  much  less 
broken  up  by  craters  or  mountain  ranges.  These  form 
the  main  features  of  the  face  seen  at  full  moon.  They 
are  crossed  by  thin  lines  known  as  rills  or  clefts  which 
run  in  all  directions,  sometimes  straight  and  unbroken 
for  hundreds  of  miles,  even  intersecting  ranges  of  moun- 
tains and  craters  and  reappearing  on  the  other  side. 
These  rills  are  generally  two  and  rarely  exceed  ten  miles 
in  width,  their  depth  varying  from  100  yards  up.  A  curi- 
ous feature  of  a  different  kind  is  an  absolutely  straight 
cut — the  great  Alpine  valley — some  83  miles  long,  which 
crosses  a  range  of  mountains  and  under  low  magnifica- 
tion looks  as  if  some  wandering  celestial  body  had  grazed 
the  surface". 

MOUNTAINS.  These  are  described  in  the  classical 
work  of  Nasmyth  and  Carpenter  (The  Moon,  Chap.  X) 
in  these  words,  which  I  would  ask  the  reader  to  study 
carefully  in  preparation  for  the  explanation  presently  to 
be  offered: 

In  turning  our  attention  to  these  features  [mountain  ranges, 
peaks,  and  hillchains]  we  are  at  the  outset  struck  with  the  paucity 
on  the  lunar  surface  of  extensive  mountain  systems  as  compared 
with  its  richness  in  respect  of  crateral  formations,  and  a  field  of 
speculation  is  opened  by  the  recognition  of  the  remarkable  con- 
trast which  the  moon  thus  presents  to  the  earth,  where  mountain 
ranges  are  the  rule  and  craters  like  the  lunar  ones  are  decidedly 
exceptional.  Another  conspicuous  but  inexplicable  fact  is  that 
the  most  important  ranges  upon  the  moon  occur  in  the  northern 
half  of  the  visible  hemisphere  where  the  craters  are  fewest  and 
the  comparatively  featureless  districts  termed  seas  are  found.  The 
finest  range  is  that  named  after  our  Appennines.  It  extends  for 


334  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

about  450  miles  and  has  been  estimated  to  contain  3000  peaks,  one 
of  which — Mount  Huyghens — attains  the  altitude  of  18,000  feet. 
*  *  *  Another  considerable  range  is  the  Alps  situated  between 
the  Caucasus  and  the  crater  Plato.  It  contains  700  peaked  moun- 
tains and  is  remarkable  for  its  immense  valley  180  miles  long 
and  about  5  broad  that  cuts  it  with  seeming  artificial  straightness 
and  that,  were  it  not  for  the  flatness  of  its  bottom,  might  set 
one  speculating  upon  the  probability  of  some  extraneous  body 
having  rushed  by  the  moon  at  an  enormous  velocity,  gouging  the 
surface  tangentially  at  this  point  and  cutting  a  channel  through 
the  impeding  mass  of  mountains.  *  *  *  At  first  thought  it  might 
appear  that  the  great  mountain  ranges  were  produced  by  bodily 
upthrustings  of  the  crust  of  the  moon  by  some  sub-surface  con- 
vulsions. But  such  an  explanation  could  hardly  hold  in  relation 
to  the  isolated  peaks,  for  it  is  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  con- 
ceive, that  these  abrupt  mountains,  almost  resembling  a  sugarloaf 
in  steepness,  could  have  been  protruded  en  masse  through  a 
smooth  region  of  the  crust.  *  *  *  We  believe  they  may  be  re- 
garded as  true  mountains  of  exudation,  produced  by  the  com- 
paratively gentle  oozing  of  lava  from  a  small  orifice  and  its  sol- 
idification around  it,  the  vent,  however,  remaining  open  and  the 
summit  or  discharging  orifice  continually  rising  with  the  growth 
of  the  mountains. 

LUNAR  SURFACE  CHANGES 

The  reader,  I  trust,  recognizes  the  impossibility  of 
discussing  in  detail  the  multitudinous  data  on  this  sub- 
ject of  lunar  changes  in  the  short  space  of  a  single  chap- 
ter, and  I  shall  therefore  compress  what  must  here  be 
said  in  the  narrowest  possible  space.  To  give  him,  there- 
fore, the  most  information  on  this  fascinating  subject  in 
the  fewest  and  clearest  of  words,!  shall  quote, — rather 
disconnectedly,  I  regret, — from  Professor  Pickering's  in- 
valuable contributions  as  they  have  recently  appeared  in 
Popular  Astronomy  (Nos.  219,  223,  237,  238)  to  which 
the  interested  reader  is  earnestly  referred : 

The  writer  feels  the  lack  of  a  generally  recognized  nomen- 
clature to  designate  certain  features  upon  the  moon,  particularly 
those  areas  of  considerable  size  which  darken  with  the  approach 
of  the  lunar  summer,  that  is  towards  lunar  noon,  and  fade  out 
again  in  the  lunar  autumn,  that  is  towards  sunset.  They  cor- 
respond to  the  Martian  "seas",  but  since  that  term  is  already  in 
use  on  the  moon  for  other  and  much  larger  objects,  he  suggests 
the  term  "fields",  which  has  the  incidental  advantage  over 


THE  MOON  335 


"canals",  etc.,  of  indicating  what  is  really  meant,  that  is  plains  or 
slopes  covered  with  some  form  of  vegetation.  *  *  * 

The  barren  and  unchanging  region  to  the  south  of  the  crater 
will  be  referred  to  as  the  "mare".  The  brightness  of  two  other 
regions  has  been  (estimated),  the  "floor"  and  the  "inner  field". 
The  latter  refers  to  that  small  portion  of  the  inner  slope  of  the 
crater  lying  directly  between  the  "source",  or  point  from  which 
the  canals  originate,  and  the  crater  floor.  This  region  changes 
very  notably  in  shape  as  the  lunation  progresses.  Between  the 
"field"  and  "the  crater  lies  a  bright  triangular  area  which  contains 
several  more  or  less  variable  canals.  Indeed,  nearly  all  of  the 
small  dark  areas  on  the  moon  are  variable  under  high  illumina- 
tion, when  well  seen,  either  in  shape,  or  density,  or  both.  Except 
in  the  case  of  a  few  small  spots  very  near  the  equator,  never  has 
any  variation  been  observed  on  the  moon  near  the  time  of  sunrise 
or  sunset,  that  is  to  say  near  the  terminator.  *  *  * 

Nearly  everyone  who  looks  at  the  moon  through  a  telescope 
confines  his  attention  exclusively  to  these  regions,  because  they 
furnish  striking  views,  are  easily  identified,  and  because  what 
is  seen  is  easy  to  understand.  It  is  largely  due  to  this  fact  that 
the  impression  that  the  moon  is  lifeless  has  so  long  maintained  its 
existence,  in  spite  of  the  facts  to  the  contrary.  The  only  time 
when  the  moon  is  interesting  to  one  who  is  really  used  to  its 
surface,  is  when  changes  are  taking  place  upon  it,  and  these  only 
occur  far  from  the  terminator,  that  is  during  the  lunar  summer 
time.  Then  they  are  conspicuous  all  over  the  surface  to  any 
who  will  take  the  trouble  to  watch  and  to  study  them  carefully.  *  * 

At  colongitude  30°  each  of  the  outer  canals  fork,  but  the 
four  branches  are  very  faint.  The  next  day  they  reach  their 
maximum  length  of  24  miles  from  source  to  terminus.  Besides 
the  two  main  canals  others  are  seen  in  the  immediate  vicinity. 
In  the  dark  region  just  outside  the  crater  they  are  seen  branching 
in  all  directions  giving  somewhat  the  effect  of  a  country  road 
map.  In  places  one  could  scarcely  travel  three  miles  without 
crossing  one.  They  are  of  all  degrees  of  faintness  from  that 
of  the  two  main  canals  already  described,  down  to  the  extreme 
limit  of  visibility.  The  narrowest  visible,  however,  can  hardly  be 
less  than  200  feet  in  width. 

The  lunar  atmosphere  is  very  possibly  considerably  more 
dense  than  is  generally  supposed.  We  know  but  little  about  the 
refractive  powers  of  very  rarefied  atmospheres  when  the  mean 
free  path  of  the  molecule  is  of  appreciable  length.  It  is  not  likely 
however  that  its  density  exceeds  a  few  milliimeters,  and  in  that 
case  ice  when  warmed  would  pass  directly  into  vapor  without 
passing  through  the  liquid  form.  However  tempting  the  idea 
might  be,  and  their  appearance  certainly  suggests  it,  these  canals 


336  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

cannot  therefore  be  irrigating  channels  either  natural  or  arti- 
ficial. *  *  * 

In  summarizing  our  observations  it  cannot  be  impressed  too 
strongly  on  the  reader  that  neither  the  dark  fields  nor  the  canals 
owe  their  blackness  to  shadow.  Shadows  are  most  conspicuous 
at  lunar  sunrise  and  sunset,  and  are  absolutely  invisible  at  'full 
moon.  These  markings  are  invisible  at  sunrise  and  sunset,  and 
are  most  conspicuous  at  full  moon.  Since  the  outer  canals  are 
wholly  invisible  at  sunrise,  though  the  region  is  well  shown,  and 
the  inner  ones  are  similarly  invisible  at  sunset,  they  cannot  be 
due  either  to  troughs  or  ridges.  The  blue  black  color  of  the 
fields  and  canals  can  only  be  due  therefore  to  a  discoloration  of 
the  surface,  which  develops  alike  on  slopes  and  levels  in  the 
lunar  summer,  and  is  invisible  in  the  spring  and  autumn.  We 
know  of  no  mineral  which  acts  in  this  manner,  and  the  only 
possible  explanation  therefore  seems  to  be  that  it  is  due  to  a 
covering  of  vegetation. 

Scarcely  any  professional  astronomers  look  at  the  moon 
now-a-days;  it  is  left  wholly  to  amateurs.  Many  astronomers 
write  text  books  on  astronomy.  New  editions  are  constantly  be- 
ing brought  out  in  which  they  repeat  the  well  worn  statement 
that  the  "moon  is  without  air,  water  or  vegetation."  It  is  im- 
possible for  a  single  writer  to  make  headway  against  such  odds. 
Statements  and  facts  relating  to  bodies  like  the  moon  and  Mars, 
which  few  astronomers  ever  look  at,  make  progress  but  slowly. 
This  is  because  the  text-book  astronomers  never  read  them,  nor 
do  they  believe  the  observers,  if  they  do.  There  are  too  many 
other  things  that  they  must  read.  *  *  * 

The  writer  first  began  advocating  the  existence  of  vegetation 
on  the  moon  a  little  over  twenty  years  ago,  and  has  been  writing 
about  it  ever  since.  Other  astronomers  had  suggested  it  before 
him,  but  for  the  last  hundred  years  the  matter  has  been  some- 
what in  abeyance,  the  last  prominent  astronomer  who  strongly 
favored  it  being  Sir  William  Herschel.  The  writer  hopes  that  in 
another  twenty  years  the  idea  will  have  gained  some  currency, 
but  alone,  without  the  help  of  others,  it  is  hopeless  to  expect  to 
accomplish  much.  *  *  * 

In  colongitude  5 5°. 9,  the  whole  eastern  face  (of  Pico)  is 
resplendent  with  freshly  formed  snow,  yet  not  quite  so  brilliant 
as  at  the  higher  levels,  perhaps  because  on  the  lower  and  steeper 
slopes  small  projections  of  rock  more  frequently  interrupt  the 
bright  surface.  *  *  * 

An  interesting  phenomenon  is  exhibited  at  this  colongitude, 
when  spots  a  and  d  begin  apparently  to  steam.  In  a  few  hours 
thick  clouds  of  vapor  are  thrown  off,  especially  from  d,  so  that 
its  outlines  become  very  hazy,  and  quite  different  from  its  earlier 


THE  MOON  337 


and  later  appearance,  and  from  the  other  spots  about  it.  Its 
color  becomes  decidedly  bluish,  and  the  fog  or  mist  in  a  thin 
transparent  stream  is  swept  off  across  the  mare  to  the  south,  as 
indicated  in  Figure  9.  The  action  becomes  less  violent  about 
colongitude,  90°,  and  by  95°  has  ceased  altogether,  as  a  usual 
thing,  although  it  was  observed  on  one  occasion  at  the  base  of  d 
as  a  very  faint  haze  as  late  as  115°.  All  the  spots  have  occa- 
sionally been  recorded  as  slightly  hazy  at  about  this  time,  but  none 
of  the  others  are  at  all  comparable  in  this  respect  to  d.  At  co- 
longitude 76°.8  the  ridges  of  Teneriffe  have  been  recorded  as 
steaming  from  end  to  end.  In  the  meantime  neighbouring  bright 
spots  were  perfectly  sharp  and  distinct.  This  steaming  might  be 
either  a  case  of  melting  snow  or  of  volcanic  activity,  the  steam 
condensing  into  ice  crystals  and  falling  as  snow.  The  writer 
rather  favors  the  latter  view,  since  the  other  spots  do  not  exhibit 
it.  *  *  * 

That  certain  bright  spots  such  as  Linne  are  always  hazy  is 
well  known.  The  peculiarity  of  Pico  d  is  that  it  is  hazy  only  at 
specified  seasons  on  the  moon,  when  other  neighboring  and  simi- 
lar spots  are  sharp.  *  *  * 

Turning  now  to  quite  a  different  type  of  formation,  we  find 
scattered  over  the  moon's  surface,  but  especially  in  the  equatorial 
regions,  a  series  of  small  craterlets  whose  interior  walls  under 
all  illuminations  are  of  dazzling  brilliancy.  The  floors  of  the 
smaller  ones  are  also  bright.  One  of  the  best  known  of  these  is 
Mosting  A,  some  5  miles  in  diameter,  3000  feet  deep,  and  situated 
in  longitude  5°,  latitude  — 3°.  On  January  27,  1915,  at  colongi- 
tude 56°.3  the  shadows  still  showed  within  the  crater,  but  had 
entirely  cleared  the  center  of  the  floor,  which  appeared  of  a  uni- 
form brilliant  white,  without  detail.  On  March  19,  1913,  6i°.o, 
a  minute  black  dot  was  detected  at  the  center,  of  less  than  half  a 
mile  in  diameter.  It  was  also  observed  Feburary  18,  1913,  66° .o. 
On  January  28,  1915,  70°.!,  the  dot  was  clearly  seen,  was  about 
a  mile  in  diameter,  and  was  of  the  same  darkness  as  the  region 
surrounding  the  crater.  Accompanying  the  dot,  and  reaching 
from  it  towards  the  north,  three-quarters  of  the  way  up  to  the 
rim,  was  a  faint  dark  band  one  mile  in  breadth.  *  *  * 

The  point  of  first  interest  perhaps  in  this  investigation  is  to 
find  when  the  spots  reach  their  minimum  size.  Within  the 
craters,  the  dark  areas  appear  and  disappear  at  about  the  same 
interval  before  and  after  midday,  which  therefore  seems  to  be 
the  time  when  the  snow  presents  the  smallest  area.  In  the  case 
of  Linne,  Professor  Barnard  and  the  writer  agreed  that  the  mini- 
mum occurred  one  terrestrial  day  after  the  lunar  midday.  *  *  *  It 
would  certainly  be  of  interest  to  prepare  a  series  of  drawings  of 
the  craterlet  near  Littrow  B,  and  determine  when  its  minimum 


338  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

occurs.  In  the  case  of  Linn  and  apparently  also  of  Littrow,  the 
white  spot  is  invisible  both  at  sunrise  and  sunset.  Just  why  this 
should  be  so  is  not  very  clear,  but  it  would  seem  to  indicate  that 
the  moisture  can  only  escape  from  the  vent  about  midday,  and 
that  towards  sunset  it  all  evaporates.  Towards  noon  the  evap- 
oration occurs  before  it  can  get  far  from  the  vent,  hence  the 
spot  is  smaller,  although  brighter  at  that  time  than  earlier  or 
later.  *  *  * 

In  the  case  of  the  mountains,  Pico,  Pico  B,  and  Straight 
Range,  most  of  the  white  spots  grow  smaller  the  longer  the  sun 
shines  on  them.  Those  on  the  west  side  of  the  mountains,  to- 
wards the  rising  sun,  are  of  full  brightness  when  the  sun  first 
strikes  them.  Those  on  the  east  do  not  deposit  until  the  sun  has 
been  shining  on  the  region  for  a  day  or  two.  It  appears  as  if  the 
ground  some  little  way  beneath  the  surface  must  be  heated  up  be- 
fore the  moisture  can  escape.  *  *  * 

The  writer  has  sometimes  been  asked,  "What  reason  is  there 
to  believe  that  there  is  ice  upon  the  moon?"  The  answer  is: 
"For  the  same  reason  that  we  believe  there  is  ice  upon  Mars, 
because  the  phenomena  observed  can  be  more  readily  explained 
that  way  than  any  other."  Whether  the  ice  is  deposited  upon 
the  surface,  or  floats  as  minute  crystals  just  above  it,  in  the  form 
of  surface  clouds  or  fog,  is  not  yet  clear,  but  it  is  believed  it  oc- 
curs in  both  forms.  Where  the  boundaries  are  sharply  defined, 
it  lies  upon  the  surface.  Where  the  boundaries  are  indistinct  and 
hazy,  as  for  instance  in  the  case  of  Linne  it  is  still  uncertain.  In 
the  case  of  the  bright  rays  surrounding  Tycho,  it  is  thought  the 
ice  crystals  are  supported  in  the  lunar  atmosphere  like  those 
terrestrial  cirrus  clouds  to  which  we  give  the  name  of  mare's 
tails.  *  *  * 

The  question  whether  water  formerly  existed  upon  the 
moon  is  larger  quantities  than  at  present  is  usually  answered  in 
the  affirmative,  but  generally  for  wholly  erroneous  reasons.  We 
often  hear  it  stated  that  the  so-called  seas  are  simply  old  ocean 
bottoms, — a  most  improbable  view.  A  casual  examination  of  the 
lunar  surface  shows  that  they  were  formed  at  a  period  subsequent 
to  the  creation  of  the  larger  craters,  since  we  find  numerous  of 
these  craters  partially  ruined  and  dissolved  in  them,  evidences  of 
fusion  being  everywhere  visible.  The  seas  really  owe  their  ex- 
istence without  doubt  to  extensive  fissure  eruptions,  such  as  have 
occurred  in  past  ages  in  India  and  in  some  of  our  North-western 
states.  During  this  period  extensive  areas  of  the  Moon's  crust 
sank  beneath  the  liquid  surface  and  were  dissolved  in  it,  much 
as  often  occurs  at  the  present  time  on  a  small  scale  in  Kilauea, 
Hawaii.  The  bottoms  of  the  great  majority  of  the  larger  craters 
were  also  dissolved  or  softened  at  this  time,  indicating  that  the 


THE  MOON  339 


crust  was  thin.  After  this  period  was  over,  a  second  era  of  vol- 
canic activity  began.  The  craters  produced,  however,  were  much 
smaller  than  those  of  the  first  period,  and  indeed  are  comparable 
in  size  to  some  of  our  own  larger  terrestrial  craters.  They  are 
found  chiefly  upon  the  maria  and  smoother  crater  floors,  and 
may  be  recognized  by  their  dark  color. 

That  there  never  was  very  much  water  on  the  moon's  sur- 
face is  rendered  certain  by  the  lack  of  extensive  areas  of  erosion. 
Nothing  is  seen  at  all  comparable  in  extent  to  what  an  outside  ob- 
server would  notice  in  inspecting  the  earth  under  similar  cir- 
cumstances. It  is  probable  that  all  or  nearly  all  of  the  large 
craters  were  originally  furnished  with  central  peaks,  but  in  most 
cases  these  were  destroyed  when  the  floors  were  liquefied.  Of 
the  peaks  which  are  left,  doubtless  all  at  one  time,  as  in  the  case 
of  our  terrestrial  volcanoes,  gave  out  large  quantities  of  steam  and 
volcanic  gases.  On  account  of  the  rare  lunar  atmosphere,  due 
to  the  small  force  of  gravity,  this  moisture  would  have  been  im- 
mediately precipitated  as  rain  or  snow,  so  that  the  erosion  would 
have  been  confined  to,  and  concentrated  about  the  vents. 

In  the  lunar  craters  the  only  evidences  of  erosion  are  in 
fact  found  on  these  central  peaks,  but  so  marked  is  the  effect  in 
these  places,  that  only  a  minority  of  the  smooth  cones  of  large 
size  are  left,  while  in  the  majority  of  cases  we  find  that  they 
have  been  partially  cut,  and  sometimes  almost  completely  worn 
away.  *  *  * 

It  would  seem  as  if  there  could  be  but  little  doubt  that  the 
brightest  regions  shown  in  these  drawings  owe  their  brilliancy 
to  snow.  In  order  to  withstand  the  evaporation  due  to  a  tropical 
sun,  unprotected  by  any  appreciable  atmosphere,  in  latitude  11°, 
this  snow  must  be  rather  deep,  even  if  it  is  being  constantly  re- 
newed from  the  Moon's  interior.  It  must  be  remembered  that 
none  of  the  bright  lines  shown  can  be  less,  allowing  for  irradia- 
tion, than  50  to  100  yards  in  width,  and  none  of  the  circles  much 
less  than  half  a  mile.  In  a  rough  and  jagged  region  there  would 
be  many  small  steep  areas  where  snow  would  not  lie,  but  which 
would  become  visible  to  us  only,  on  account  of  their  small  size, 
by  a  diminution  of  the  general  brilliancy  of  the  whole  area.  We 
might  naturally  expect  therefore  that  some  snowy  areas  would 
appear  to  be  brighter  than  others.  *  *  * 

A  very  casual  examination  of  the  Moon  will  show  that  un- 
der high  illumination  nearly  half  of  the  craters  exhibit  white 
patches  on  portions  of  their  interior  slopes.  Very  little  attention 
has  ever  been  paid  to  them  by  selenographers.  They  are  some- 
times visible  as  soon  as  the  Sun  rises  upon  them,  but  more  often 
they  gradually  develop  under  the  action  of  the  solar  rays.  They 
lie  on  the  slopes  most  directly  exposed  to  the  Sun,  and  as  the 


340  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

Sun  moves  across  the  lunar  sky,  they  shift  from  the  eastern  to 
the  western  side  of  the  craters.  In  the  southern  hemisphere 
they  circle  round  the  crater  by  way  of  the  south,  and  in  the 
northern  by  way  of  the  north.  Even  quite  near  the  equator  the 
circling  occurs  to  a  certain  extent.  The  whiteness  is  frequently 
due  to  small  irregularly  shaped  bright  areas,  which  are  some- 
times related  to  small  craters,  but  more  often  they  lie  on  some 
steeply  inclined  interior  slope.  They  rarely  occur  on  the  outer 
slopes  of  the  craters. 

Let  one  more  quotation  suffice,  this  time  from  the 
article  of  Professor  Eussell  W.  Porter,  entitled  Moon- 
scapes (Pop.  Astr.,  No.  238),  which  is  embellished  with 
three  instructive  ideal  views  of  the  moon  that  cannot  be 
distinguished  from  Arctic  landscapes,  or  rather  snow- 
scapes.  He  says: 

Our  nearest  neighbor,  the  moon,  is  a  case  in  point.  The 
writer,  in  viewing  her  surface  through  his  sixteen  inch  reflector 
in  the  comfort  of  a  closed  observing  room,  has  frequently  caught 
himself  transported  to  that  body,  and,  in  imagination,  viewing 
her  scenery  from  some  crater  lip  or  the  vast  expanse  of  one  of 
her  sea  floors.  Having  himself  spent  many  years  above  the  Arctic 
Circle,  he  was  struck  by  a  strange  likeness  of  the  moon's  general 
aspect  to  our  own  polar  regions.  The  long  reaches  of  the  frozen 
polar  ocean,  traversed  by  immense  pressure  ridges  and  tidal 
cracks,  the  dazzling  whiteness  and  clear  cut  shadows,  the  desola- 
tion and  loneliness — all  seemed  to  find  a  counterpart  in  the  lunar 
appearance.  The  accompanying  moonscapes  were  the  natural  out- 
come. 

CUEEENT  THEOEIES  KEGAEDING  THE  LUNAE  SURFACE 

THE  PLUTONIC  OE  VOLCANIC  THEOEY.  Since,  in  our 
superlatively  practical  age,  we  find  astronomers,  even 
those  of  an  agnostic  turn,  ready  to  subscribe  to  such 
superstitions  as  uncaused  motions,  self -rotating  nebulae, 
and  the  like,  it  is  easy  to  excuse  Galileo  and  his  contempo- 
rary sympathizers  for  accepting,  out  of  hand,  the  pre- 
posterous notion  that  the  so-called  craters  of  the  moon 
are  veritably  volcanic.  But  that  such  an  infantile  idea 
has  been  able  to  survive  the  discovery  of  the  mechanical 
equivalent  of  heat  and  command  at  the  present  moment 
the  confidence  of  the  great  majority  of  learned  scientists, 
is  to  me  one  of  the  most  cryptic  of  modern  mysteries. 


THE  MOON  341 


It  is  not  a  difficult  matter  to  compute  what  the 
moon's  temperature  should  have  been  at  the  close  of  the 
still-credited  Laplacian  cosmic  process,  and  the  calcula- 
tion has  been  made  thousands  of  times.  Thus,  Doctor 
Lowell,  in  his  Mars  as  the  Abode  of  Life  (p.  23),  says, 
'  '  On  the  principle  that  the  heat  caused  by  contraction  was 
as  the  body's  mass,  this  state  of  things  on  the  surface  of 
our  satellite  is  unaccountable.  The  moon  should  have  a 
surface  like  a  frozen  sea,  and  it  shows  one  that  surpasses, 
the  earth's  in  shagginess. ' '  His  calculation,  he  reports, 
gives  the  satellite's  temperature  as  only  — 27°  F.  "To 
point  out  that  any  volcanic  action  could  be  produced  by 
this  quantum  of  heat",  he  adds,  "is  superfluous".  All 
this  was  long  known  to  astronomers,  without,  however, 
in  the  least  influencing  their  doctrinal  teachings,  and  even 
before  Darwin  took  a  hand,  with  a  view  to  helping  mat- 
ters, by  ingeniously  extracting  the  moon  from  the  sup- 
posedly much  hotter  body  of  the  earth. 

It  then  came  to  be  taught,  and  is  still  taught  in  all 
the  main  institutions  of  learning  in  this  and  other  coun- 
tries, that  the  numerosity  and  the  monstrosity  of  the 
lunar  craters  is  due  to  the  happy  combination  of  these 
two  factors,  namely,  first,  the  possession  by  a  small  body 
of  a  cosmic  temperature  appropriate  to  one  80  times 
larger,  and,  second,  a  coincident  reduction  in  the  weight 
of  substances;  the  former  factor  supplying  the  desired 
augmentation  of  the  eruptive  forces  behind  the  volcanic 
activities,  and  the  latter  accounting  for  the  relatively 
farther  distance  to  which  the  lighter-weight  debris  was 
driven.  It  was,  in  fact,  somewhat  analogous,  in  their 
minds,  to  the  imaginary  transplanting  of  a  strong  man 
from  here  to  the  moon,  where  his  power  to  lift  weights 
would  be  sextupled. 

Struthiously  shutting  our  eyes,  as  the  astronomers 
here  do,  to  all  the  ifs  and  ands  by  which  this  ingenious 
deduction  has  been  arrived  at,  let  us  provisionally  accept 
it  as  true  and  see  how  well  or  ill  it  fulfills  the  require- 
ments. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  planet  Mars,  which  is 
midway  in  mass  between  the  earth  and  moon,  yet  not  a 


342  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

smgle  crater  or,  in  fact,  any  protuberant  irregularity  at 
all  has  yet  been  descried  upon  his  surface!  Judging 
from  these  two  bodies,  Mars  and  the  moon,  alone,  then, 
we  should  naturally  conclude  that  the  smaller  the  cosmic 
body  the  more  rugged.  But  proceeding  another  step 
higher,  we  find  this  rule  already  violated ;  for  the  earth  is 
very  much  rougher  than  Mars,  yet  far  less  so  than  our 
satellite.  Now,  inasmuch  as  our  Vulcanists  are  uni- 
versally agreed  in  holding  that  our  planet,  too,  is  a 
shrinking  body  and  that  the  asperities  on  her  surface 
are  due  solely  to  this  cause  and  the  kindred  cause  of  vol- 
canic upheaval,  it  follows  that  the  only  salvation  for  the 
Volcanic  hypothesis  is  to  establish  that  the  moon,  when 
she  gained  her  supposed  separate  existence,  must  have 
been  far  hotter  than  Mars  and  at  least  as  hot  as  the 
parturient  earth.  In  fine,  the  Vulcanists  are  logically 
forced  to  be  Tidal-evolutionists,  and  their  theory  conse- 
quently rests  on  Darwin's  admittedly  "wild  speculation 
impossible  of  verification". 

Secondly,  investigation  has  shown  that  the  earth's 
temperature  rises  one  degree  for  every  sixty  feet  of 
depth,  and  it  is  only  fair  to  presume  that  this  rule  held 
relatively  true  throughout  her  postulated  contracting 
process.  Judging  by  the  existing  gradient,  the  tempera- 
ture at  the  earth's  center  should  be  about  320,000  degrees 
F.  as  against,  say,  550°,  absolute,  near  the  surface.  If, 
now,  we  conceive  the  earth  to  be  divided  into  81  concen- 
tric strata,  all  of  them  of  equal  mass,  the  temperature  of 
the  outermost  should  average  only  that  degree  marking 
the  middle  of  its  thickness,  or,  by  calculation,  1250°  F., 
abs.,  while  the  average  temperature  for  the  entire  planet 
should  be  no  less  than  80,000  degrees!  Now,  Darwin's 
idea  was  not  that  the  moon  was  explosively  ejected  out  of 
the  heart  of  the  earth,  but  that  she  was  flung  off  from  its 
periphery  by  centrifugal  force.  Had  the  former  act  been 
postulated,  it  would  be  good  logic  to  say  that  she  bore 
with  her  the  average  temperature  of  the  planet,  but  inas- 
much as  she  was  flung  off  from  the  outside,  her  hotness 
could  not  have  been  greater  than  that  of  the  crust,  the 
very  coldest  part  of  the  planet,  and  theoretically  very 


THE  MOON  343 


little  above  what  the  satellite  should  have  possessed  had 
she  separately  agglomerated! 

Finally,  to  cut  short  a  long  list  of  criticisms,  it  is  not 
true  that,  even  had  the  moon  originally  possessed  the 
same  temperature  as  the  earth,  her  volcanic  displays 
would  have  been  more  devastating  in  the  ratio  of  six  to 
one.  The  solar  gravity  is  27.6  times  that  of  the  earth 
and  165  times  that  of  the  moon,  yet  he  ejects  matter  at 
times  as  far  above  his  photosphere  as  the  moon  is  from 
the  earth.  Anyone  who  has  ever  watched  quarrymen  at 
work  knows  that  " tamping"  is  a  very  important  part  of 
the  blasting  process.  A  heavier  charge  lightly  tamped 
will  not  begin  to  create  as  much  havoc  as  a  lighter  one 
well  tamped.  Ramming  the  charge  too  tight  has  ruined 
many  a  good  gun  and  robbed  its  owner  of  his  life.  The 
heavier  the  weight  of  the  superincumbent  materials  the 
longer  are  the  explosions  delayed  and  the  severer  when 
they  come. 

The  biggest  crater  on  the  earth  is  said  to  be  that  of 
Haleakla,  Hawaii,  possessing  a  diameter  of  less  than 
seven  miles;  and  there  are  not  more  than  a  half  dozen 
terrestrial  craters  that  could  be  made  out  by  a  lunar 
observer,  though  armed  with  our  best  telescopic  instru- 
ments. On  the  moon,  on  the  contrary,  there  are  literally 
thousands  such,  a  half  dozen  of  the  largest  being  upwards 
of  a  hundred  miles  in  diameter,  and  thence  dwindling  to 
invisible  sizes.  To  account  for  all  these  dynamically  and 
adequately,  Darwin  should  have  accouched  his  moon 
from  the  sun,  not  from  the  earth ;  and  she  should  have 
been  as  diminutive  as  Eros,  besides. 

THE  BOLIDE  THEOKY.  By  way  of  an  alternative  hy- 
pothesis, Professor  Grove  K.  Gilbert,  whilom  president 
of  the  Philosophical  Society  of  Washington,  in  an  ad- 
dress before  that  body  in  1892,  expounded  the  notion  that 
the  earth  may  primevally  have  possessed  a  ring  like  that 
of  Saturn,  and  that  the  lunar  asperities  were  produced  by 
its  collapse.  The  reader  will  find  an  excellent  presenta- 
tion of  this  view  in  Popular  Astronomy,  March,  1917,  by 
Donald  Putnam  Beard,  from  which  I  quote : 


344  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

ORIGIN.  If  we  conceive  the  moon  as  an  edifice  which  had 
its  foundation  in  a  ring  or  shoal  of  meteors  encompassing  the 
primeval  earth,  and  similar  to  the  giant  planet  Saturn  (the 
meteoric  constitution  of  whose  rings  was  spectroscopically  dem- 
onstrated by  Keeler  in  1895),  and  if  we  imagine  this  shoal  grav- 
itating together  and  building  up  our  satellite  by  accretion,  no  vio- 
lence is  done  the  essential  principles  of  Laplace's  immortal  Neb- 
ular Hypothesis.  Meteors  replace  molecules,  that  is  all,  as  long 
ago  pointed  out  by  the  late  C.  A.  Young.  The  mechanical  be- 
haviour of  a  meteor  swarm  containing  individual  masses  and  en- 
dowed with  the  ordinary  velocities  of  meteors  would  be  precisely 
similar  to  a  nebulous  mass  of  continuous  gas. 

The  mathematical  analysis  of  the  mechanical  conception  of 
a  Saturnian  ring  is  not  in  place  in  a  discussion  of  this  nature,  but 
by  imparting  to  the  postulated  meteors  in  the  swarm  orbits  not 
widely  variant  from  that  of  the  moon's,  and  in  a  similar  direction, 
their  initial  velocities  at  impact  were  small  as  compared  with  those 
created  by  the  moon  alone.  Since  the  course  of  these  moonlets 
were  parts  of  curved  orbits  with  the  moon  at  their  focus,  they 
cannot  justly  be  considered  as  straight  lines.  By  restricting  these 
meteors  to  a  thin  plane  ring,  and  assuming  a  fairly  equable  dis- 
tribution through  this  plane,  the  distribution  of  impact  angles  de- 
duced by  Gilbert  yields  a  curve  in  which  58  per  cent  deviate  from 
the  vertical  less  than  20°;  70  per  cent  less  than  30°,  while  80 
per  cent  fall  within  40°  from  the  true  vertical.  To  the  vertical 
infalls  consequent  upon  this  condition  is  due  the  prevalent  cir- 
cularity of  the  craters  and  obviates  a  resort  to  R.  A.  Proctor's 
improbable  suggestion  of  an  elastic  return  to  circularity. 

Laboratory  experiments  with  a  lead  disk  5.5  inches  in  dia- 
meter and  about  0.5  inches  thick  as  a  target,  into  which  .22  cali- 
ber bullets  of  the  same  material  were  fired,  demonstrate  experi- 
mentally the  effects  produced  by  the  impacting  moonlets  upon  the 
moon's  surface.  Interesting  replicas  of  the  moon's  crater  forms 
were  thus  obtained  by  the  writer.  *  *  * 

OVERLAP.  An  instance  in  which  a  larger  crater  overlaps  and 
partially  obliterates  an  earlier  and  smaller  formation  is  shown 
in  Maurolycus,  in  the  roughest  portion  of  the  moon.  The  ob- 
served fact  that  there  are  comparatively  few  of  these  examples  is 
eagerly  taken  by  the  volcanic  advocates  as  proof  positive  that  the 
moon's  craters  are  defunct  volcanic  formations.  But  the  very 
paucity  of  instances,  far  from  proving  the  truth  of  the  vulcanists' 
contention,  is  mutely  eloquent  in  our  defense,  since  the  probabili- 
ties would  be  overwhelmingly  against  the  survival  of  this  species 
of  "overlap"  crater.  Yet  this  superposition  of  larger  over  smaller 
craters  is  exemplified  by  Longomontanus,  Maurolycus,  Hainzel, 
Schiller  and  others. 


THE  MOON  345 


SCULPTURE.  The  peculiar  plateau  of  Wargentin  and  Phoc- 
lydes  are  striking  examples — in  more  than  one  sense — of  some 
tremendous  lava  deluge.  The  first-named  object  is  a  smooth, 
nearly  circular  mesa  54  miles  across  and  filled  nearly  to  the  level 
of  the  lowest  point  of  its  rim  with  solidified  lava.  That  War- 
gentin does  not  reign  alone  in  his  unique  grandeur  is  proclaimed 
by  the  partial  filling  of  Gassendi,  Letronne  and  Hippalus  to  the 
north;  craters  which  experienced  a  community  of  origin  with 
Wargentin  and  the  neighbouring  depressions. 

As  the  result  of  moonlet  impacts  in  the  adjacent  maria  and 
the  fall  of  lithic  dust  from  their  conflagrations,  Boscovicfi  is 
scarcely  to  be  recognized  as  a  crater,  while  Julius  Caesar  and 
LeMonnier  have  nearly  lost  their  characters.  To  the  vaporization 
of  the  more  massive  bodies  the  many  "ghost  craters"  on  the  moon 
owe  their  partial  eff acement,  typified  by  Fra  Mauro,  Fracastorius 
and  Cassini.  As  Doctor  See  wrote  concerning  these  dim  spectres 
of  the  desolate  lunar  Hades:  "So  far  as  one  can  see,  only  two 
explanations  are  tenable:  i.  The  deposit  of  cosmical  dust  from 
the  heavens,  and  from  conflagrations  arising  in  the  impact  of 
satellites.  2.  The  partial  melting  down  of  the  walls  by  the 
conflagrations  which  produced  the  maria,  so  that  only  an  outline 
of  the  original  crater  walls  can  be  traced." 

The  southern  boundaries  of  the  great  Imbrian  lava  deluge 
visioned  forth  as  occurring  far  down  the  vista  of  the  ages  were 
determined  by  Pitatus  and  Hippalus,  while  southwestward  the 
onslaught  of  the  impacting  planetoid's  molten  flood  attained 
Posidonius  and  eastward  it  lost  itself  in  the  Oceanus  Procellarum. 
By  this  memorable  world-wide  cataclysm,  which  at  one  stroke 
wrought  the  Maria  Imbrium,  Nubium  and  Humorum  and  the 
encricling  ramparts  known  as  the  Apennine  and  Caucasus  ranges, 
"were  introduced  the  features  necessary  to  a  broad  classification 
of  the  lunar  surface." 

LUNAR  "VALLEYS".  A  veritable  "Valley  of  the  Moon"  is  the 
Rheita  Valley.  This  is  a  shallow  groove  of  varying  width  with 
a  shorter  off-shoot  on  the  south  end.  It  runs  from  the  eastern 
edge  of  the  crater  Rheita  southwestward  more  than  185  miles 
to  Rheita  d;  its  breadth  varies  from  n  to  25  miles,  with  a  maxi- 
mum depth,  according  to  Beer  and  Madler,  of  about  11,000  feet. 
A  long,  narrow  cleft  resembling  a  rill,  starts  from  near  Picco- 
lomini  and  trends  southwestward  more  than  450  miles  to  near 
Metius,  which  temporarily  interrupts  it ;  but  it  continues  its  course 
beyond  that  crater  and  to  the  right  of  the  Rheita  Valley. 

However,  the  Alps  Valley,  a  straight  defile  traversing  the 
lunar  Alps  range,  is  the  most  interesting  of  them  all,  betraying 
an  exceptional  character  which  demands  for  its  origin  an  excep- 
tional explanation.  A  trough-like  flat-bottomed  groove  trending 
east-north-east  by  west-south-west  clean  across  the  Alps  range; 


346  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

it  is  83  miles  long  by  from  three  and  one-half  to  six  miles  in 
width,  and  from  its  positioning  bespeaks  kinship  to  the  Imbrian 
deluge,  thus  uniting  the  furrow  group  of  the  western  district 
with  the  eastern  sculpture  system. 

BRIGHT  RAYS.  The  system  of  brilliant  rays  which  radiate 
from  the  crater  Tycho  down  the  lunar  disk,  like  luminous  par- 
allels of  longitude,  and  also  the  wavy  streaks  converging  upon 
Copernicus;  the  lesser  systems  of  Proclus,  Kepler  and  Snellius, 
are  the  most  enigmatic  phenomena  of  the  moon's  surface.  Those 
emanating  from  Tycho  extend  for  vast  distances  across  the  lunar 
disk;  in  one  instance —  that  of  the  one  crossing  the  Mare  Ser- 
enitatis — near  18,000  miles.  Straight  as  the  famed  canals  of  the 
desert  planet  Mars,  they  seem  not  to  mind  obstructing  craters  or 
elevations  in  their  predetermined  path.  As  a  contrast,  those  ra- 
diating from  Copernicus  are  branched  and  wavy  and  much  shorter 
than  the  Tychonic  phenomenon.  *  *  * 

Most  conspicuous  at  full  moon,  under  the  vertical  solar  il- 
lumination, they  seem  to  be  superficial  colour-streaks  only,  and 
one  can  be  seen  on  the  inner  floor  of  Saussure,  near  Tycho,  and 
may  even  be  traced  up  its  inner  cliffs,  like  a  vein  of  volcanic  trap 
piercing  sedimentary  rock-strata  on  our  own  planet.  This  is  a 
treacherous  analogy,  however,  as  Mr.  R.  S.  Tozer  has  pointed 
out.  "The  lowest  visible  stratum  on  the  moon  is  dark,  the  con- 
figuration of  the  edges  of  the  light  coloured  portion  showing 
plainly  that  the  darker  portions  extend  underneath.  *  *  *  Whence, 
then,  the  light  coloured  lava  ? 

These  brilliant  rays  cannot  be  inner  material  extruded  from 
beneath  a  crust  rent  by  tidal  stresses,  since  an  exact  restoration 
of  level  which  would  not  cast  shadows  at  sunrise  or  sunset  along 
hundreds  of  miles  would  be  practically  impossible.  But  the  sug- 
gestion advanced  by  Mr.  William  Wurdemann  of  Washington, 
D.  C,  seems  more  plausible;  viz.,  that  "a  meteorite,  striking  the 
moon  with  great  force,  spattered  some  whitish  material  in  va- 
rious directions."  Furthermore,  Professor  Gilbert,  in  the  lecture 
previously  adverted  to,  made  the  prophetic  suggestion  that  "per- 
haps the  free  iron  and  nickel  of  meteorites  may  stand  sponsor 
for  free  sulphur  or  phosphorus  in  moonlets." 

When  astronomers  undertake  to  theorize,  there  ap- 
pears to  be  no  limit  to  the  violence  of  the  assumptions 
they  permit  themselves.  Because  one  planet  out  of  eight, 
Saturn,  has  a  ring,  it  is  taken  for  granted  that  the  earth 
had  one,  and  a  fantastic  hypothesis  is  straightway  built 
upon  the  gratuitous  idea.  No  one  seems  to  ask,  or  care, 
whether  the  size  of  the  planet  can  have  any  bearing  on 
the  matter,  or  whether  the  distance  and  measurements 


THE  MOON  347 


of  the  ring  are  conditioned  in  any  way,  or  whether  the 
sizes  of  its  component  particles  are  minutely  limited  by  a 
natural  law,  or  how  such  rings  come  into  existence,  or 
how,  in  collapsing,  they  do  so  upon  themselves  instead  of 
upon  their  primary,  or  how  they  can  collapse  at  all  under 
the  Newtonian  traditions.  The  exterior  diameter  of 
Saturn's  ring  is  only  173,000  miles,  whereas  the  diameter 
of  the  moon's  orbit  is  480,000  miles — almost  three  times 
as  great ;  nor  is  there  any  sign  in  his  ring  of  any  consid- 
erable nucleus  comparable  in  magnitude  to  our  moon. 
Should  anyone  suggest  that  the  disintegration  of  such  a 
structure  would  result  in  the  creation  of  another  Saturn- 
ian  satellite  instead  of  a  meteoric  shower  upon  that  plan- 
et, he  would  deservedly  be  looked  upon  askance. 

About  the  only  characteristic  marks  on  the  moon's 
surface  that  this  impact  theory  even  remotely  fits  is  the 
simple  lunar  crater,  not  all  the  craters,  but  only  that  sort 
of  crater  that  exhibits  a  small  shallow  pit  without  central 
cones.  It  does  not  explain  the  depression  of  the  pit 
floors  below  the  general  level  of  the  surface,  or  why  some 
of  the  craters  biggest  in  diamter  have  quite  low  ramparts 
and  exhibit  no  inner  depressions  worth  mentioning.  It 
does  not  explain  the  inner  terraces,  nor  the  non-destruc- 
tion of  the  existing  central  cones,  nor  the  strange  coinci- 
dence of  groups  of  small  craters  huddled  within  the  en- 
closures of  some  of  the  larger  ones.  Nor  does  it  explain 
the  remarkable  phenomena  of  sugar-loaf  mountains,  the 
stupendousness  of  the  Apennine  range,  the  strange  im- 
munity from  petty  bombardment  of  the  vast  areas  called 
maria,  the  wonderful  chain  of  bluffs  hemming  in  the 
maria,  the  several-hundred-miles-long  ravines,  and  the 
like.  Least  of  all  does  it  account  for  the  thousand  and 
one  diurnal  variations  in  the  map  and  color  of  the  moon, 
of  which,  thanks  to  such  keen  and  conscientious  observers 
as  Professor  Pickering,  the  recorded  evidence  is  rapidly 
accumulating — since  the  first  edition  of  this  book  ap- 
peared. 


348  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 


THE  MOON'S  TOPOGRAPHY  EXPLAINED 

Paradoxical  as  it  may  sound,  the  real  surface  of  the 
moon  is  as  smooth  as  that  of  Mars!  Equally  paradoxi- 
cal may  ring  the  statement  that  the  lunar  oceans  have 
risen  from  their  beds  and  taken  up  their  permanent  abode 
on  the  dry  land.  In  plain  English,  they  have  disap- 
peared, not  into  outer  space,  but  into  SNOW,  and  the 
mountains  and  craters  that  we  see  are  nothing  more  nor 
less  than  the  fantastic  sculpturings  of  one  Jack  Frost. 
Like  the  man  in  the  fable  who  could  not  see  the  woods  for 
the  trees,  so  astronomers  have  been  all  along  failing  to 
see  the  lunar  oceans  because  of  the  heaped-up  snow !  The 
text  books  tell  us  that  snowflakes  are  so  exceedingly  por- 
ous, and  absorb  so  much  air  in  their  creation,  that  a  single 
inch  of  rainfall  is  equivalent  to  a  ten-inch  fall  of  snow. 
Fancy,  if  you  please,  some  strange  freak  of  Nature 
whereby  all  the  waters  of  our  oceans  and  rivers  and  lakes 
should  be  converted  into  the  "beautiful"  and  settle  upon 
our  continents  and  islands  never  to  return  again  as 
water  to  its  ancient  beds,  what  a  wonderful  and  strange 
sight  our  earth  would  present ! 

This  is  precisely  what  has  happened  to  our  moon. 
This  is  why  her  surface  is  so  magnificently  sculptured, 
why  we  see  no  rain-clouds  or  oceans  upon  her,  why  her 
atmosphere  has  "disappeared" — why,  in  short,  she  pre- 
sents the  curious  aspect  and  asperities  she  does. 

Here  you  may  interpose, ' '  Then  how  do  you  account 
for  the  fact  that  the  same  sort  of  thing  hasn't  happened 
to  the  earth  and  Mars  I"  Easily  enough.  With  respect 
to  the  sun,  the  moon  does  not  rotate  on  her  axis  in  just  the 
same  way  as  she  does  with  respect  to  the  earth,  but  turns 
completely  round,  so  that  every  point  on  her  surface  ex- 
periences a  day  one  of  our  fortnights  long  followed  by  a 
night  of  equal  length.  In  short,  her  days  and  nights  are 
virtually  two  seasons,  summer  and  winter.  This  strange 
arrangement,  as  you  can  see,  accentuates  many  fold  the 
contrast  between  the  seasons,  and  causes  us  to  ruminate 
how  the  thing  works  out.  We  have  only  to  use  our  eyes 
— and  brains — to  satisfy  ourselves. 


THE  MOON  349 


By  analogy,  we  are  bound  to  presume  that  the  moon 
possesses,  or  at  one  time  did  possess,  oceans  in  about  the 
same  ratio  to  her  mass  as  the  earth,  Mars  and  Venus.  It 
is  true  this  is  only  a  presumption ;  nevertheless  it  places 
the  burden  of  proof  on  those  who  assert  the  opposite. 
The  question  then  confronts  us ;  What  effect  should  these 
lunar  changes  of  season  naturally  have  on  the  waters  of 
her  streams  and  oceans?  That  these  would  undergo 
great  evaporation  under  a  steady  stream  of  sunshine  two 
weeks  on  end  goes  without  saying,  even  were  the  moon's 
gravity  as  great  as  the  earth's,  a  fortiori  in  that  her 
gravity  is  but  1-6  as  strong. 

The  next  question  is ;  Would  the  two  seasons  evenly 
counter-balance  each  other,  so  that  the  summer's  warmth 
would  completely  counteract  and  undo  the  gelid  effects 
of  the  preceding  winter?  This  question  is  not  one  for 
argument,  but  for  objective  fact,  and  the  moon's  visibly 
glacial  condition  is  the  answer.  We  have  only  to  sup- 
pose that  at  the  beginning  of  the  process,  whenever  that 
may  have  been,  the  first  winter  deposited  a  greater  litter 
of  snow  than  the  ensuing  summer  succeeded  in  clear- 
ing away,  so  that  a  residual  sheet  of  snow — how  large  is 
immaterial,  seeing  that  time  was  not  of  the  essence — re- 
mained at  the  end  of  the  first  day  (or  summer)  as  the 
nucleus  for  later  accumulations  to  come.  Thus,  day  by 
day,  with  accelerated  growth,  the  store  of  snow  and  ice 
accumulated  until  all  the  water  was  congealed  and  all 
that  the  winters  had  thereafter  to  do  was  to  keep  up  the 
status  by  merely  making  good  the  day's  inroads. 

Of  course,  we  cannot  see  the  changes  taking  place  on 
the  dark  or  hidden  side  of  the  satellite,  but  we  can  easily 
judge  of  them  from  what  we  can  perceive  going  on  on 
the  areas  we  do  see;  and  these  latter  are  so  easily  un- 
derstandable that  a  formal  interpretation  ought  scarcely 
to  be  required  here.  However,  they  are  so  interesting  in 
themselves  that  we  shall  consider  some  of  them,  by  way 
of  illustration,  to  show  how  simply  to  construe  even  the 
most  complicated  formations  are. 

MAKIA.  These  are  really  ancient  ocean  bowls  from 
which  their  whilom  contents  have  taken  flight  in  the  form 


350  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

of  white  flakes,  which,  settling  on  the  dry  surfaces,  have 
made  these  their  permanent  abode.  Owing  to  the  ge- 
ometrical fact  that  the  areas  of  small  spheres  are,  rela- 
tively to  their  mass,  larger  than  in  larger  spheres,  the 
oceans  of  the  moon  were  proportionally  shallower,  aver- 
aging, in  fact,  only  about  a  half  mile  in  depth.  As  the 
levels  in  these  receded  because  of  the  snow  exodus, 
naturally  the  protuberances  (of  uneven  height)  on  the 
bottom  became  successively  exposed  with  lapse  of  time, 
creating  new  islands  and  new  resting  places  for  the  flakes. 
Now,  it  is  self-evident  that  the  nearer  the  pinnacles  of 
these  originally  submerged  protuberances  lay  to  the  sur- 
face of  the  sea,  the  sooner  would  they  have  become  ex- 
posed and  the  sooner  would  the  flakes  begin  building  up- 
on them;  but  it  is  also  true  that,  unlike  on  land  surfaces, 
such  sub-aqueous  irregularities  are  the  exception  rather 
than  the  rule,  hence  snow  mounds  on  the  sea-beds  should 
not  only  be  lesser  in  magnitude,  but  fewer  in  number. 

Inasmuch  as,  according  to  our  premiss,  there  was 
never  a  let-up  to  this  peculiar  process  of  ocean-robbing, 
the  time  eventually  arrived  when  the  entire  floor  became 
virtually  uncovered,  presenting  in  reality  a  land  scene  in 
which  every  bar  and  sink-hole  showed — save,  however, 
that  on  all  the  emerged  spots  there  rested  columns  of 
snow,  more  or  less  squat,  and  that  the  sink-holes  were 
normally  empty.  I  say  normally  empty  advisedly,  for 
the  reason  that  during  the  hot  season,  as  we  can  see  to- 
day, a  good  deal  of  the  snow  naturally  thaws  again  and 
trickles  down  into  the  lowest  places,  forming  there  black 
pools  which  contrast  vividly  with  the  scant  vestiges  of 
snow  that  may  be  found  in  these  recurrently  flooded  re- 
gions. Between  the  blackness  of  such  pools,  however, 
and  driven  snow,  there  are,  of  course,  all  gradations  of 
white — though  no  colors — to  be  seen.  These  diverse 
shades  are  due  to  one,  or  to  the  combination,  of  two 
causes ;  first,  to  the  soaking  of  low-lying  snow  as  a  result 
of  thawing,  and,  second,  to  a  seaming  and  corrugating  of 
other  snow  surfaces,  especially  on  slopes,  by  irregular 
thawing,  slipping,  and  settling ;  the  dense  shadows  of  the 
ridges  in  the  furrows  marring  the  general  brightness. 


THE  MOON  351 


It  would  be  unreasonable  for  us  to  expect  to  find  on 
our  ocean  beds,  could  they  be  revealed  to  our  eyes,  the 
same  perfection  and  profuse  diversity  of  configurations 
that  our  land  surfaces  exhibit,  and  the  same  thing  is  true 
of  the  lunar  maria.  These  tell  us  just  what  they  are. 
The  "ruined"  mounds,  craters,  and  other  structures  we 
there  see  are  merely  the  abortive  efforts  of  the  Ice  King 
ivhen  his  supply  of  raw  material  had  about  given  out. 
Apropos  of  this,  I  cannot  forbear  to  quote  the  lucid  im- 
pressions of  an  amateur  astronomer,  Mr.  John  A.  Cook, 
as  set  forth  in  Popular  Astronomy  (No.  235) : 

For  more  than  thirty  years  I  have  been  studying  and  observing 
the  Lunar  surface  in  an  amateurish  way,  using  instruments  rang- 
ing in  size  from  two  to  ten  inches,  and  have  arrived  at  conclusions 
at  variance  with  those,  so  far  as  I  know,  held  by  the  great  selen- 
ographers,  living  and  dead,  regarding  the  above  mentioned  fea- 
tures. 

We  find  them  scattered  about  over  the  floors  and  shores  of 
the  Ocean  and  seas.  When  found  fully  down  on  the  sea  floor 
they  often  present  but  the  merest  trace  of  a  ring.  Those  on  the 
shore  will  show  that  part  down  in  the  sea  destroyed,  while  that 
portion  of  the  crater  on  higher  ground  is  intact. 

Writers  speak  of  them  as  Ruined  walls,  Submerged  walls, 
Melted  walls,  and  often  as  destroyed  by  some  unknown  cause. 

1  have  searched  the  works  of  Neison,  Pickering,  Elgar,  Lohr- 
mann,  Fauth,  Nasmyth  &  Carpenter,  Serviss  and  a  host  of  other 
more  general  works  to  find  if  some  one  would  not  suggest  water 
erosion,  and  if  not  why  not,  to  account  for  their  ruined  condition, 
but  have  failed  The  opinion  seems  to  prevail  that  they  have  been 
submerged,  inundated  by  molten  matter  welling  up  from  the  in- 
terior burying  them.  As  this  would  require  material  enough  to 
spread  over  between  two  and  three  millions  of  square  miles,  and 
to  a  depth  of  more  than  a  mile,  and  as  we  find  no  trace  of  such 
a  lava  outflow  except  in  the  seas,  if  there,  I  find  it  difficult  to 
accept  the  theory,  even  with  my  great  respect  for  the  above  named 
masters  of  selenography. 

CRATERS.  The  flatness  of  Mars,  a  larger  body,  indi- 
cates that  the  moon  should  be  essentially  fully  as  flat,  if 
not  more  so.  Such  a  land  surface,  we  know  from  daily 
observation,  is  ordinarily  exceedingly  cut  up  by  channels 
into  all  sorts  of  irregular  islands  and  peninsulas,  diver- 
sified by  equally  miscellaneous  small  expanses  of  water  of 
varying  depth.  Let  us  pick  out,  to  begin  with,  a  large 


352  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

lake  of  considerable  depth  and  possessing  a  smooth  floor, 
and  question  ourselves  what  sort  of  a  snow  structure 
would  be  likely  to  result  were  the  water  to  be  set  to  boil- 
ing on  the  coldest  day  of  an  Arctic  winter.  The  rising 
vapor  would,  as  a  matter  of  course,  meeting  the  icy  air, 
transform  itself  into  snow,  and,  unless  driven  far  by 
winds,  descend  and  settle  on  the  nearest  land,  namely,  the 
margins  of  the  lake,  where  they  would  continue  to  build 
themselves  up  as  long  as  there  was  neighboring  water 
being  evaporated.  Of  course,  a  good  deal  of  the  snow 
would  fall  back  upon  the  water,  but  there  it  could  not  lie, 
unless,  indeed,  the  lake  froze  over,  which,  in  turn,  would 
mean  the  cessation  of  the  chain.  But  let  the  process  con- 
tinue until  the  lake  went  dry,  what  shall  we  then  have? 
Surely  nothing  else  but  a  simple  lunar  crater — a  cavity 
hollowed  out  of  the  earth  surrounded  by  a  solid  wall  of 
white. 

If  instead  of  a  single  lake,  you  will  imagine  another 
one  adjoining  it,  and  much  deeper,  you  will  find  at  the 
end  of  the  operation  one  complete  wall  encircling  the  sec- 
ond or  deeper  lake  encroaching  upon  and  "ruining"  the 
wall  of  the  first.  Let  there  be  an  island  or  islands  in  the 
lakes,  and  you  will  have  examples  of  a  peak  or  peaks, 
whose  thickness  and  height  will  depend  in  large  measure 
upon  whether  they  were  originally  submerged,  and  if  so 
to  what  depth. 

Just  as  there  may  be  peaks  within  craters  so  there 
may  be  craters  within  craters.  The  difference  consists  in 
this,  that  whereas  the  peaks  are  solid  columns  mounted 
on  islands  from  snow  supplied  by  the  vapors  risen  from 
surrounding  pools,  the  craters  are  hollow  chimneys 
grounded  upon  the  margins  of  enclosed  wells  sunken  into 
the  floor  of  the  main  basin.  That  is  to  say,  some  pools, 
both  large  and  small,  when  baled  out,  -exhibit  not  only 
protuberances  on  their  floors,  but  also  pit  holes  that  still 
remain  filled  with  water,  and  these  sub-pools  by  going 
through  the  same  modus  operandi  as  did  the  original  one 
give  birth  to  sub-craters.  In  fine,  every  dent  in  the 
moon's  surface  that  normally  would  be  filled  with  water 


THE  MOON  353 


becomes  a  crater  by  the  conversion  of  its  contents  into 
snow  flakes  and  the  settling  of  the  latter  on  the  brims. 

The  very  largest  craters  on  the  moon  are,  literally, 
the  maria  themselves,  for  here  was  the  chief  source  of  the 
snow  supply.  Around  their  borders  on  all  sides,  there- 
fore, stand  high  snow  cliffs,  some  of  them  very  precipi- 
tous ;  while  at  other  places  there  are  terraces,  or  perhaps 
gentle  slopes  masking  the  elevated  character  of  the  mesas 
or  plateaus  at  their  backs.  These  differences  are  due  to 
the  varying  natural  depth  of  the  ocean  bed  at  the  shore 
line.  If  the  offset  is  abrupt,  the  gathering  water  from 
the  summer  thaws  washes  and  undermines  the  base  of  the 
glacial  cliffs,  keeping  them  sharply  trimmed,  whereas  if 
there  is  a  natural  beach,  a  different  order  prevails. 

When  snow  is  piled  too  high,  its  own  weight  causes 
it  to  collapse  or  telescope  upon  itself,  resulting  in  two 
things ;  first,  the  top  layer  flattens  out  and  overhangs  the 
base,  forming  a  lip,  which  in  time  loses  its  balance  and 
falls,  forming  a  terrace  or  talus;  this  event  being  per- 
haps followed  by  another  similar  avalanche  farther  on, 
provided  the  pile  be  sufficiently  deep ;  and,  secondly,  the 
increased  weight  finally  reaches  an  extreme  limit,  where 
It  liquefies  and  squashes  out  the  undermost  layer  into 
the  flanking  pools.  These  two  processes,  major  though 
they  are,  are  yet  beyond  the  range  of  our  telescopes  to 
reveal  and  rest  solely  upon  deduction.  Taken  in  connec- 
tion with  the  continuous  repair  work  being  performed  by 
the  ever-rising  snow,  they  suffice  to  keep  the  lunar  struc- 
tures looking  remarkably  clean-cut  and  permanent,  a  cir- 
cumstance which  has  led  astronomers  into  the  erroneous 
belief  that  there  is  an  absence  of  " weathering"  on  the 
moon. 

When  the  process  of  glaciation  originally  began,  the 
lunar  atmosphere  was,  of  course,  very  much  denser  than 
it  is  now,  because  the  snow-that- was-to-be  had  not  yet  ab- 
sorbed it.  As  a  consequence,  the  meteorological  condi- 
tions at  the  outset  were  much  different  from  now,  for 
whereas  the  winds  doubtless  then  played  a  strong  role 
in  scattering  the  snows  far  and  wide  over  the  continental 


354  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

plains,  these  snows  are  now  quiescently  restricted  to  the 
immediate  neighborhood  of  the  ancient  pools,  accentuat- 
ing thus  the  magnitudes  and  salient  features  of  the  lunar 
sculpturings,  more  particularly  of  the  craters,  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  inland  prairies. 

In  elucidating  a  general  principle  it  is  usually  much 
simpler  and  more  satisfactory  to  choose  a  concrete  ex- 
ample. Let  us  picture  to  ourselves,  therefore,  a  circular 
cistern  twelve  feet  in  depth  and  a  hundred  feet  in  diame- 
ter. Instead  of  the  walls  being  vertical,  however,  let 
us  imagine  them  sloping  downward  toward  the  center  of 
the  bottom,  but  so  as  to  leave  a  circular  flat  space,  say 
25  feet  in  diameter.  Now,  for  the  sake  of  easy  reference, 
conceive  of  this  slope  as  cut  into  four  steps,  each  a  yard 
in  height.  We  shall  then  have  a  structure  resembling 
the  pit  of  a  Eoman  amphitheater.  Again,  let  us  picture 
standing  on  the  bottom  a  number  of  granite  blocks  res- 
pectively 2,  4,  8  and  10  feet  in  height,  to  represent  natural 
protuberances.  Let  us  now  fill  the  cistern  to  the  brim 
with  water,  thus  submerging  all  the  blocks,  and  start  the 
natural  process  of  evaporation  and  snowing,  limiting  at 
the  same  time  the  snowfall  radius  to,  say,  a  thousand 
feet ;  for  we  must  not  overlook  the  present  quiescence  of 
the  moon's  atmosphere,  on  account  of  which  the  snow 
spreads  but  slightly. 

Now,  until  the  water  in  the  cistern  has  evaporated 
down  to  the  level  of  the  first  tread  (beginning  from  the 
top),  the  falling  snow  cannot  gain  a  footing  on  the  water 
surface,  but  must  settle  only  on  the  brim  and  a  slight  dis- 
tance beyond,  its  depth  gradually  decreasing  to  our  pre- 
scribed snowfall  limit.  A  yard's  depth  of  water,  area  for 
area,  being  equivalent  to  ten  times  that  heighth  of  snow, 
we  shall  have  gained  by  the  evaporation  of  the  first  yard 
a  snow  rampart  all  around  the  brim,  say  five  feet  high, 
sloping  gradually  backward  to  nothing.  I  have  just 
stated  that  the  snow  could  settle  only  on  the  brim,  but  this 
is  not  precisely  true,  for  we  must  not  forget  the  tallest 
of  the  granite  blocks,  which  for  one-third  of  this  time  has 


THE  MOON  355 


been  exposed.    It,  too,  is  capped  with  snow,  say  to  the 
depth  of  two  feet. " 

Now  suppose  another  equal  period  to  elapse,  and  the 
cistern's  depth  reduced  to  the  level  of  the  second  tread. 
This  time  the  brim's  cap  has  increased  by  another  five 
feet  in  heighth,  and  the  slope  behind  it  in  slightly  less  pro- 
portion, because  the  rising  snow  brim  has  in  a  measure 
further  blocked  the  spread  of  the  snow.  Again,  the  first 
tread  having  all  this  time  been  clear  of  the  water,  it,  too, 
is  covered,  and  to  a  depth  of  five  feet ;  the  tallest  granite 
island  has  also  gained  six  more  feet  in  height;  and  the 
second  one  of  eight  feet,  having  been  above  water  two- 
thirds  of  the  period,  disports  a  snow  cap  of  four  feet. 
Thus  the  process  goes  on  till  we  reach  the  circular  area  at 
the  bottom.  In  this  area  we  have  finally  four  islands 
standing  in  a  shallow  pool  of  water  less  than  a  yard  deep. 
But  note  that  the  first  block  uncovered  is  not  the  tallest 
now,  for  its  pinnacle  being,  let  us  say,  only  two  feet 
square,  lacks  the  area  necessary  to  sustain  a  taller  col- 
umn. As  a  matter  of  fact  the  third  block  has  much  the 
broadest  top  of  any,  and  though  still  shorter  than  either 
the  first  or  second,  must  in  time,  as  the  result  of  future 
processes  of  evaporation  and  snowfall,  grow  to  a  great 
height;  yet,  being  itself  limited  in  area  also,  it  can  per- 
haps never  reach  the  altitude  of  the  encircling  rampart, 
which  by  now,  let  us  say,  has  risen  to  the  imposing  alti- 
tude of  possibly  thirty  feet,  and  will  continue  rising, 
given  the  necessary  supply  of  snow,  until  it  telescopes 
upon  itself  by  its  own  weight.  But  to  return  to  the  moon : 

Naturally,  the  melted  water  that  manages  to  seep 
back  into  the  basins  must,  while  the  sun  is  still  high,  im- 
mediately undergo  again  the  process  of  evaporation.  Ow- 
ing, however,  to  the  frigidity  of  the  planet's  quiescent  at- 
mosphere, as  well  as  to  its  own  self -built  prison  walls,  the 
rising  mist  changes  into  snow  before  it  escapes  from  the 
caverns,  in  which  condition  it  is,  of  course,  undetectable 
as  vapor.  Some  of  this  snow  doubtless  spreads  promis- 
cuously over  the  planet's  surface,  but  a  major  share  of  it 
remains  to  restore  and  heighten  the  old  walls.  This  pil- 


356  FKOM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

ing-up  process  cannot  go  on  indefinitely  without  even- 
tually causing  the  peaks  to  telescope  upon  themselves 
from  time  to  time,  partly  on  account  of  their  own  over- 
gorged  weight,  and  partly  because  of  the  undermining  of 
their  bases  by  the  periodical  flooding  of  the  bottoms.  This 
telescoping  process  gives  us  the  key  to  the  terraced  effect 
so  generally  observed  on  the  inner  sides  of  the  crateral 
ramparts  and  supplies  the  reason  for  the  otherwise  sur- 
prising precipitousness  of  their  faces.  It  also  explains 
why  the  mountains  and  ramparts  automatically  preserve 
a  maximum  uniformity  of  height,  and  why  the  great  ring- 
walls  present  their  characteristic  squashy,  convolute  ap- 
pearance. 

MOUNTAINS.  Selenographers  have  in  the  past  re- 
garded as  the  most  puzzling  of  all  facts  about  the  moon 
"the  presence  of  the  most  important  mountain  ranges  in 
the  featureless  districts  termed  seas,  where  the  craters 
are  fewest."  By  my  hypothesis,  the  mystery  becomes  a 
mystery  no  longer.  In  the  oceans,  when  full,  there  could 
not,  of  course,  have  been  separate  pools ;  hence  no  craters. 
But  there  were  doubtless  natural  islands.  These  latter, 
situated  as  they  were  in  the  very  heart  of  the  snow-pro- 
ducing regions  (these  maria)  accumulated  the  tremen- 
dous loads,  that  now  mark  them  to  us  as  "  mountains  ". 

The  island  of  Cuba  is  730  miles  long,  the  lunar  Ap- 
pennines  450  miles.  Imagine  rapid  changes  of  the  sea- 
sons to  occur  on  the  earth  as  they  do  on  the  moon  and 
that  the  snows  from  one  winter  to  another  would  keep 
on  accumulating  until  Cuba  should  be  crowded  with  all 
the  snow  it  would  hold,  what  a  wonderful  mountain  range 
would  it  not  make — "in  the  midst  of  a  featureless  plain" 
— and  how  like  to  the  lunar  Apennines !  As  for  the  Val- 
ley of  the  same  name,  that  is  merely  the  vacant  trough  of 
the  sound  that  originally  separated  the  island  from  the 
mainland. 

There  would,  however,  be  a  great  difference  between 
the  height  of  the  Cuban  range  of  snow  mountains  and 
the  30,000-foot  Apennines,  inasmuch  as  the  surface 
gravity  here  is  so  much  greater.  The  latter  mountains 


THE  MOON  357 


are  at  their  maximum  possible  height,  for,  however  much 
they  may  be  snowed  upon,  they  cannot  grow  taller,  for 
the  simple  reason  that  their  base  becomes  liquefied 
and  runs  out  pari  passu.  Now,  snow  is  snow  wherever 
it  may  be,  and  if  piled  on  the  island  of  Cuba  would,  other 
things  equal,  act  as  it  does  on  the  moon.  Other  things  are 
not  equal,  however,  particularly  in  this  matter  of  the 
surface  gravity,  as  just  suggested ;  consequently  our  Cu- 
ban range  could,  automatically,  never  exceed  a  mile  in 
altitude. 

WHITE  RAYS,  BILLS,  etc.  Imagine,  if  you  please,  an 
immense  marsh  500  miles  or  so  in  diameter  irregularly 
cut  up  into  all  sorts  of  small  patches  of  land  separated 
from  each  other  by  narrow  strips  of  water  of  varying 
depths,  with  here  and  there  a  larger  expanse  of  land  bear- 
ing small  ponds  or  lakes;  and  picture  to  your  mind's  eye 
how  such  a  scene  would  be  transformed  by  such  a  process 
of  glaciation  as  I  have  described.  In  such  a  case,  soon 
after  nightfall,  every  natural  ledge  of  land,  and  every 
ledge  that  by  the  sun's  evaporation  had  become  uncov- 
ered, would  again  become  decked  with  fresh  snow,  the 
depth  varying,  of  course,  according  to  the  controlling 
circumstances.  Indeed,  twenty-four  hours  after  the  sun 
had  disappeared  below  the  horizon,  and  perhaps  earlier, 
every  square  inch  of  the  lunar  landscape,  every  nook  and 
cranny,  including  even  the  beds  of  all  the  streams,  lakes 
and  maria,  would  be  covered  with  the  mantle  of  white, 
and  this  state  of  things  would  continue  unmodified  all 
through  the  long  night  until  close  upon  dawn.  With 
dawn,  however,  would  begin  the  great  thaw,  and  the  solar 
artist  would  occupy  himself  the  ensuing  day  in  etching 
out  the  land  shapes  by,  at  first,  melting  the  snow  where 
thinnest,  which  is  to  say,  on  the  ancient  water  beds,  and 
subsequently  accentuating  his  artistic  effects  from  hour 
to  hour.  In  fine,  the  white  rays  are  neither  more  nor  less 
than  the  persistent  deeper  deposits  of  snow  piled  on  the 
broader  and  originally  more  elevated  and  receptive 
patches  of  the  marsh  land. 


358  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

The  rills  and  "canals"  are  dried-up  streams,  con- 
necting straits,  or,  in  some  cases,  arms  of  the  seas,  that, 
should  the  snow  all  melt  away  entirely,  would  fill  with 
water  to  the  brim.  The  reason  why  they  never  fill  up 
with  snow  is  surely  not  hard  to  understand.  Though  the 
sun's  heat  may  fail  to  bare  the  ground  of  snow  univer- 
sally, it  is  not  said  that  he  does  not  thaw  great  quantities 
of  it  away,  or,  even,  that  some  of  the  land  may  not  be 
periodically  bared  in  exceptional  places.  The  water  from 
these  thaws,  like  that  from  rain,  seeks  its  lowest  level  and, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  drains  into  the  ancient  channels 
and  pools.  Arriving  there  it  dissolves  what  snow  may 
have  previously  settled  in  them,  or  tumbled  into  them 
from  the  icy  cliffs  on  either  side,  and  then,  being  cor- 
nered, as  it  were,  by  the  sun,  it  rapidly  starts  evaporat- 
ing, and  the  vapor,  changing  promptly  back  into  snow, 
settles  down  again  and  systematically  restores  the  walls 
lining  the  banks. 

Owing  to  the  circumstance  that  the  lunar  atmosphere 
has  now  found  burial  in  the  snow  mounds,  there  are  no  at- 
mospheric storms  on  the  satellite,  and  the  freshly-formed 
snow  does  not  scatter  much  but  settles  on  the  cliffs  closest 
by.  Wherever  the  natural  stream  or  pool  is  shallow, 
therefore,  the  lower  are  the  adjacent  walls,  and,  converse- 
ly, the  deeper  these  are  the  more  imposing  the  snow 
phalanxes  hemming  them  in.  On  this  hypothesis,  then, 
there  is  no  enigma  in  the  phenomenon,  otherwise  inexpli- 
cable, that  these  supposed  "fissures  in  the  lunar  crust " 
cleave  straight  through  the  very  ruggedest  of  mountains 
and  abhor  the  valleys ;  for  this  is  precisely  what  should  be 
expected  of  them.  Nor  is  there  any  greater  marvel  in  the 
observed  fact  that  such  clefts  and  the  pits  of  the  deeper 
craters  actually  delve  down  deep  below  the  natural  level 
of  the  surface,  thereby  adding  to  the  ' '  cavernous ' '  effects. 
In  terrestrial  volcanoes  the  floor  of  the  crater,  far  from 
being  deeper  down  than  the  surrounding  regions,  is  in- 
variably much  higher — a  most  significant  distinction. 


THE  MOON  359 


GENERAL  REFLECTIONS 

LUNAB  SURFACE  CHANGES.  The  author  of  all  these  is, 
of  course,  the  sun.  At  midnight  on  the  moon  what  little 
air  there  is  should  be  absolutely  dry,  all  of  its  moisture 
having  been  frozen  out  of  it  and  deposited  upon  the  sur- 
face in  the  form  of  frost  and  snow.  On  the  deepest  beds 
of  the  sea  this  coverlet  would  be  but  a  mere  sprinkle, 
having  fallen  after  the  descent  of  night  as  the  last  act  in 
the  drama  of  the  day. 

Now,  on  the  moon,  owing  to  the  exceedingly  light 
atmospheric  pressure,  water  boils  at  a  much  lower  tem- 
perature than  here, — let  us  say,  at  32°  F.,  though  this  can 
scarcely  be  more  than  a  close  guess.  For  this  reason  the 
thawing  process  begins  early — immediately  with,  or  prob- 
ably an  hour  before,  dawn — so  that  (as  there  is  no  light 
refraction  there)  on  the  very  lowest  places  such  as  the 
maria  floors,  where  it  lies  at  its  lightest,  the  snow  may 
be  effectually  flooded  over  before  observers  can  even 
glimpse  its  presence.  Granting  the  reasonableness  of  this 
inference,  it  is  easy  to  understand  why  areas  seen  to  be 
just  whitening  as  they  pass  into  the  night  may  at  their 
succeeding  dawn  appear  to  have  lost  their  whiteness  from 
some  nocturnal  cause,  instead  of  from  the  freshets  caused 
by  the  returning  day. 

As  the  sun  rises  on  the  lunar  landscape,  he  first 
shines  upon  the  western  sides  of  the  hills ;  the  eastern  re- 
maining in  shadow,  illuminated  only  by  the  reflection 
from  the  slopes  opposite.  Wherever  his  rays  impinge, 
there  the  process  of  thawing  goes  on  and  the  water  of 
thaw  naturally  flows  down  the  icy  slope  or  seeps  down 
through  the  porous  snow,  until  it  reaches  the  pool  at  the 
bottom.  Once  there,  the  water  is  warmed  to  a  point  of 
boiling  (32°  F.,  remember,  on  the  moon),  and,  rising  into 
the  thin  atmosphere,  is  quickly  reconverted  into  snow 
flurries,  which  to  us  look  to  be  clouds  of  vapor  and  which 
selenographers  have  heretofore  been  construing  as 
"noxious  gases  from  the  moon's  volcanic  vents." 

All  this,  let  it  be  understood,  occurs  in  the  morning 
of  the  lunar  day.  At  high  noon,  the  whole  bottom  of  the 


360  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

crater,  let  us  say,  is  directly  open  to  view,  and  then  the 
pool  ought  to  appear  at  its  largest  and  blackest,  were  it 
not  that  just  then  the  snow  cloud  is  probably  at  its  den- 
sest. With  the  passing  of  the  meridian,  the  eastern  wall 
is  now  being  shone  upon  by  the  afternoon  sun,  and  inas- 
much as  the  rays  start  this  time  with  the  vertical  instead 
of  with  a  slant,  the  eastern  melting  proceeds  much  more 
rapidly  at  the  outset,  increasing,  say,  till  48  hours  past 
noon  of  the  lunar  day,  and  thereafter  fading  to  the  mini- 
mum at  sunset.  During  this  half  of  the  process  we  see 
the  original  pool — now  in  cold  shadow — lose  its  black  as- 
pect and  freeze  over  and  whiten  with  a  skim  of  snow, 
while,  diametrically  opposite  on  the  crater  floor,  another 
pool  forms  from  the  draining  of  thaw  water  off  the  east- 
ern slope,  giving  off  fresh  clouds  of  vapor  which,  being 
immediately  transformed  into  flakes,  settles  wherever  it 
can.  I  use  the  word  immediately  advisedly,  for  Arctic  ex- 
plorers tell  us  that  in  those  regions  the  transition  of  at- 
mospheric vapor  into  snow  is  accomplished  directly  and 
without  the  formality  of  clouds.  Commenting  on  this 
phenomenon,  Prof.  W.  B.  Wright  (The  Quaternary  Ice 
Age,  p.  19)  says: 

All  the  explorers  who  have  persisted  into  the  interior  (of 
the  Arctic  and  Antarctic  regions)  are  agreed  as  to  the  fine-grained 
character  of  the  snow  which  falls  there.  Among  the  most  inter- 
esting of  the  observations  made  by  Nansen  are  those  bearing  on 
the  origin  of  this  snow.  He  calls  attention  to  the  great  clearness 
of  the  atmosphere  during  nearly  the  whole  of  the  time  occupied 
by  his  journey.  On  only  a  few  days  was  the  sky  overcast,  and 
when  snow  was  falling  it  was  still  possible  to  see  the  sun.  The 
fine  dusty  snow  appears  to  be  precipitated  directly  from  the  lower 
layers  of  the  atmosphere  without  the  preliminary  formation  of 
clouds.  It  is  what  is  known  as  frost  snow  in  some  parts  of  Nor- 
way. 

When  I  use  the  word  "pool",  the  reader  is  not  to 
presume  that  I  necessarily  mean  a  circular  or  sub-circu- 
lar shape.  Its  shape  may  indeed  be  such,  but  if  so,  it 
would  be  purely  accidental.  It  all  depends  on  the  con- 
figuration of  the  natural  water  courses,  and  these,  as 
everyone  knows,  may  be  forked  and  connected  up  in  any 
sort  of  way  imaginable.  Let  a  deep  lake,  for  instance,  be 


THE  MOON  361 


connected  with  a  distant  one  by  means  of  a  channel,  then 
the  appearance  at  noonday  would  be  that  of  a  dumb-bell 
crater,  with  a  very  black  handle  connecting  the  two  cen- 
ters. It  so  happens  in  the  special  case  of  Aristillus,  which 
Prof.  Pickering  discusses,  that  the  natural  configuration 
of  the  crateral  basin  is  such  as  the  dark  lines  and  areas 
he  describes  indicate.  The  basins  must  possess  some 
shape. 

There  are,  however,  it  appears,  some  broader  change- 
ful areas  in  the  midst  of  level  plains,  far  distant  from  the 
crateral  regions,  and  upon  these  Prof.  Pickering  seems  to 
rely  most  securely  for  his  contention  that  there  is  "vege- 
tation on  the  moon."  My  own  opinion  is  that  these  areas, 
being  far  remote  from  the  snow  producing  pools,  are 
covered  with  horizontal  glacial  sheets  less  than  a  score  of 
feet  in  thickness,  which  either  become  sopped  by  the  mid- 
day thaws  into  a  dull  slush  or,  in  places  very  far  remote 
from  the  pools,  may  even  be  so  thin  as  to  melt  away  en- 
tirely and  leave  considerable  spots  wholly  bare  of  icy 
covering.  Obviously,  under  my  theory  of  lunar  condi- 
tions, vegetation  and  animal  life  there  are  alike  out  of  the 
question,  and  candor  compels  me  to  add  that,  even  under 
the  volcanic  hypothesis  of  the  origin  of  the  moon's  fea- 
tures, which  Mr.  Pickering  champions,  I  cannot  see  the 
reasonableness  of  his  view,  best  qualified  of  all  men 
though  he  may  be  to  speak  at  first  hand  on  this  subject. 

Why  are  there  no  clouds  to  be  seen  on  the  moon, 
where  so  much  water  exists?  My  answer  is,  that  vapor 
cannot  arise  directly  from  a  crystalline  surface,  but  must 
first  pass  through  the  detached  liquid  stage.  Until  a 
blanket  of  snow  is  reduced  to  at  least  the  condition  of  a 
very  shallow  slush,  it  will  never  give  off  "steam".  On 
the  moon  there  is  indeed  an  immense  amount  of  thawing 
going  on  during  the  day,  but  the  fluid  water,  where  in  im- 
mediate contact  with  crystallic  ice,  preserves  its  liquidity 
and  seeps  down  into  and  through  the  porous,  spongy 
snow  underneath.  Not  only  this,  but  such  little  vapor  as 
does  form  obviously  becomes  quickly  frosted  by  the  "air" 
and  settles  immediately.  Either  of  these  explanations 


362  FROM  NEBULA  TO  NEBULA 

alone,  or  at  least  the  two  combined,  sufficiently  suffice  to 
explain  the  anomaly  of  the  moon's  cloudlessness  as  well 
as  the  minor  fact  that  the  snow  peaks  are  oftentimes  per- 
ceptibly whiter  than  their  lower,  water-soaked  slopes. 

ALBEDO.  Were  the  surface  of  the  moon  perfectly 
smooth  and  covered  with  new-fallen  snow,  her  albedo  (i. 
e.,  her  general  brightness)  would  far  surpass  the  actu- 
ality. The  deficiency  is  due  to  several  things,  for  in- 
stance ;  first,  the  strong  shadows  thrown  upon  her  by  her 
own  hills,  secondly,  the  slushiness  of  certain  regions, 
thirdly,  the  seaming  and  corrugating  of  her  snow  sur- 
faces due  to  repeated  sopping  and  irregular  settling,  and, 
finally,  the  darkness  of  her  maria.  Paradoxically,  her 
dark  side  is  intrinsically  whiter  than  her  illuminated  face, 
for  then  her  maria  are  covered  with  fresh  sprinkles  of 
snow. 

ABSENCE  OF  ATMOSPHERIC  BEFRACTION.  This  pecu- 
liarity has  heretofore  very  properly  been  attributed  to  a 
paucity  of  air ;  some  saying  that  this  was  carried  off  by  a 
passing  comet;  some  that  it  was  probably  absorbed  by 
porous  volcanic  rocks ;  some  that  it  may  have  been  drawn 
into  the  moon's  interior  by  causes  unknown ;  some  that  its 
lighter  molecules  escaped  into  space,  and  still  others  that 
the  satellite  never  had  any  more  atmosphere  than  it  has 
just  now.  As  the  reader  has  already  learned,  my  own 
view  is,  that  it  has  been  almost  totally  absorbed  by  union 
with  the  water  in  the  manufacture  of  snow  crystals. 

But  there  is  still  another  reason.  When  Prof.  Lang- 
ley  invented  the  bolometer  about  forty  years  ago  and 
tested  it  out  on  the  full  moon,  he  was  dumbfounded  and 
disconcerted  to  find  that  her  heat  radiation,  instead  of 
being  much  hotter  than  at  new,  is  really  virtually  the 
same.  Nevertheless,  he  courageously  reported  the  fact 
as  he  found  it,  and  was  severely  ridiculed  by  no  less  an 
authority  than  the  great  Proctor  himself.  Since  then,  the 
world  of  science  has  been  trying  to  wriggle  clear  of  this 
evidence;  which,  however,  refuses  to  down.  The  sun-lit 
side  of  the  moon,  I  reassert,  is  intensely  cold,  and,  being 


THE  MOON  363 


so,  the  consequent  uniformity  of  her  atmospheric  tem- 
perature from  top  to  bottom  greatly  diminishes  its  re- 
fractive qualities. 

You  may  wish  to  ask  me  why  the  moon  does  not  ro- 
tate, seeing  that  she  was  primevally  provided  with  liquid 
oceans.  For  this  there  are  two  reasons,  either  one  of 
which  would  suffice  singly.  One  of  these  is,  tftat  the  sat- 
ellite's gravistatic  heat  is  only  a  small  fraction  of  the 
earth's,  being  in  fact  only  thirty  degrees  higher  at  the 
depth  of  two  miles  than  it  is  at,  say,  100  feet  below  her 
surface.  The  second  reason  is,  that  inasmuch  as  the  lunar 
oceans  could  never  have  exceeded  a  half  mile  in  depth  on 
the  average,  and  since  the  weight  of  water  there  is  only 
one-sixth  of  what  it  has  here,  the  load  on  the  bottom 
waters  could  not  have  been  more  than  fifteen  atmospheres 
and  consequently  fell  far  short  of  the  amount  requisite  to 
compress  them  beyond  their  freezing  density. 


THE  END. 


FROM 

TO 

OR 

THE  DYNAMICS  OF  THE  HEAVENS 


PRICE  S3.5O  POSTPAID 


ADDRESS 

GEORGE  H.  LBPPER,  151O-12  BERGER  BLDG. 

PITTSBURGH,  PA. 


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